


I Know You Know I'm Not Telling the Truth

by FunnyWings



Series: Psych/Supernatural Crossover Series [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Case Fic, Cops, Detective Agency, Eventual Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eventual Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, F/M, Gen, M/M, Psych - Freeform, Psychic, psych au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-25 03:51:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 39,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6179116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunnyWings/pseuds/FunnyWings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester's father spent his childhood trying to teach him skills so he could be a successful cop. However, after his parents divorce, Dean had a falling out with his father and dropped out of high school and has been wandering between jobs ever since. Sometimes he calls in tips to the police station for extra cash. After a while the police get suspicious and in order to prevent his own arrest, Dean tells Officers Milton and Novak that he is a psychic. And the rest is history, folks.</p><p>Please note that this is not a word for word interpretation of the pilot of Psych, though there are some similarities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Psych!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I love the show Psych and I love Supernatural, so I thought I'd write a crossover. This story will be told over four cases (unless I think of more, but probably four). Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Also, I don't own anything. That too.
> 
> And now for the Psych AU all (four) of you have been waiting for...

Dean didn’t know where his mom was, but Sam had run off to memorize plant facts or whatever nerdy thing he was into at the moment and Dean had padded down softly to the kitchen to try to steal a piece of the pie his mom had made two days ago. He had just quietly opened a drawer to grab a fork when his dad cleared his throat behind him. Dean felt his shoulders slump and turned around defeated.

“Dean, what are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Dean said, staring down at the floor. At eight years old his dad still towered over him and it was impossible not to be intimidated. “I was just…”

“Don’t lie, I know what you were about to do,” John said. His tone was more amused than angry and Dean let out a soft sigh of relief. “Close your eyes.”

Dean was no longer relieved.

“Dad come on, do we have to do this right now?” Dean whined. John gave him a look and Dean reluctantly closed his eyes.

“Let’s start simple. What time is it?”

“2:38 or 2:39,” Dean answered. The last time he’d caught sight of the clock had been a few minutes previously. The hum of approval he heard confirmed he’d calculated the difference correctly.

“How many wash cloths hung up on the towel rack?”

“Six.”

“Tell me about them.”

“Dad,” Dean complained, screwing his eyes shut tighter trying to remember.

“Answer the question.”

“Two of them have roses, one is plain white, one is blue and yellow striped, and the last two are the purple ones mom got from Grandpa that you wish she’d throw out,” Dean said. He waited for more demands, but John clapped the back of his head and Dean hesitantly let one eye slightly open. The next moment a plate was placed in front of him with a slice of pie on it.

“Don’t tell you mother,” John warned. “And clean up when you’re done. I don’t want to see you leaving dishes everywhere, Dean, you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” Dean replied before digging in with a toothy grin. After his dad had gone out to get the mail he snuck up to Sammy’s room to share the quarter he had left with his little brother. The six year old chomped happily away and agreed immediately not to tell mom or dad about it. After that, Dean went back to the kitchen and washed the plate before putting it back in the cabinet, lined up with all the rest. Then he went back to Sam’s room and played superheroes with his little brother. He knew he was supposed to let Sam win, but he never did unless his parents were watching because he liked the impressed look in his little brother’s eyes when he managed to save the day.

“I’m going to be just like you when I grow up,” Sam said when the two brothers had exhausted themselves and were lying on Sam’s bed, staring up at the stars Dean had helped him put up.

“You kidding, Sammy? I’m never going to grow up,” Dean said back, before tickling his little brother until he was crying with laughter and begging him to stop. Sam glared at him for the rest of the afternoon, but it was okay because Dean knew he didn’t really mean it.

***************************************** EIGHTEEN YEARS LATER***********************************

God, this chick was hot, Dean thought as Jenny straddled him. Sam always told him that going to diners was bad for his health, but then again Sam wasn’t very good at getting waitresses to come home with him to work off any extra pounds the diner food might cause. Dean felt his head fall back as Jenny started kissing down his neck and opening up his button down to reach more skin. The back of his head hit the remote, causing the TV to flick on.

A man with a light lisp was speaking to a reporter about the recent gruesome murders at the docks and Dean stared at the screen, Jenny instantly forgotten. He focused in on the unblinking stare of the worker and the sheer joy shining through the supposedly somber expression. Every few seconds, the dock worker’s cheeks twitched as though he were trying not to smile. Dean watched carefully and the man shifted and he caught sight of a few flecks of blood right behind the worker’s ear. Dean reached for the phone, dialing the police.

“What are you doing?” Jenny complained, trying to win back Dean’s attention. He gave her a smile before focusing back in on the news.

“I think I just solved a crime. Just phoning it in,” he said, kissing her lips momentarily as the phone rang. She smiled down at him.

“I didn’t know you were a cop.”

“Not a cop,” Dean said, shuddering at the thought. “Don’t even play one on TV. I’m just that good,” he said with a wink. “Let me get this sorted and I’ll make it up to you, okay? Whatever you want.”

Jenny pretended to pout before going back to kissing every inch of skin she could reach.

“I’ll hold you to that,” she murmured. Dean managed to choke out the details of his tip to the woman who answered the phone from the police station before hanging up and following a very creative Jenny- who had been whispering suggestions in his ear throughout his phone call- back to his bedroom.

****************

Dean waited impatiently in front of the front desk at the police station. The black woman behind the desk was named Missouri Mosely, which Dean had picked up from her plaque, but she seemed determined to ignore him and instead spent the first few minutes he tried to get her attention staring into a crystal. Finally she looked up at him.

“Your energy is very pure, young man,” she said with a smile. “Go sit down, Officer Milton will be with you in a moment.”

Dean eyed the various spiritual paraphernalia hung up around Missouri and shrugged, flashing her a cheeky grin before sitting next to a burly guy who was hunkered down his face partly hidden behind the shadow of his hat. Dean looked him up and down, noting the slumped shoulders and sad eyes the other man was displaying. He was chained to the bench, though Dean suspected he shouldn’t be.

“Who framed you, dude?” he asked, distracted for a moment by a cute officer struggling with a coffee machine. He managed to get it to work and made a quick sweep with his eyes before taking six packets of sugar and pouring them in one after the other. Dean focused back in on the man next to him who had lifted his eyes and was staring at Dean, obviously curious.

“Ex-girlfriend. Invited me over and then set her apartment on fire. Called the cops and said I attacked her,” he mumbled. Dean tsked sympathetically before reaching out a hand to shake with the other man.

“Tough break. If it’s any consolation, I’d start your defense with the defensive wounds on your arms. Should prove exactly who did the attacking.”

The man squinted at him for a moment, trying to puzzle Dean out before a smile lit up his face.

“Benny LaFitte,” he said, holding out his hand as far as it would go while chained to the bench. Dean took it and shook it.

“Dean Winchester,” he said. The next moment a throat cleared next to him and he looked up to see a pretty redhead police officer motioning for him to follow her. Dean stood up and walked back through the station toward what he knew from visiting his dad at work when he was a kid were the interrogation rooms. “So how much are you guys going to pay me?” Dean asked. He knew it was kind of skeezy to ask for money, but he also knew that he had a bill coming up, so he wasn’t going to think too much about social convention. The redhead raised an eyebrow at him and then let him into the interrogation room.

The cop that stood there had messy dark brown hair and bright blue eyes that seemed to immediately catalogue every part of Dean’s person. Dean held his stare and winked when the cop finally met his eyes, which seemed to piss the guy off. He narrowed his eyes before speaking.

“Hello, I’m Officer Novak, this is my partner Officer Milton. Do you know why you’re here today?”

Officer Milton, the redhead, had sat down next to her partner and Dean noticed the light brush of her hand against his knee and the quick reassuring look he had given her. He smirked to himself, but didn’t comment.

“Uh, because I solved a murder? I figured you guys wanted to say thank you, but you know the best way to say thank you is really less face to face, more face to cash, if you get what I’m saying.”

“Actually no. Where were you the night of the last murder?” Novak said, leaning forward across the table, his posture clearly meant to intimidate. Dean relaxed further into the hard chair he’d sat in, knowing that his reaction would piss the cop off any more.

“Oh, I was murdering someone. But someone different, does that count as an alibi?” he asked.

“We aren’t joking around here, Mr Winchester,” Officer Milton said seriously. Dean sighed and looked between the two.

“I was probably at home. Happy? I don’t know why you’re asking me, I’m the one who freaking solved the case while you guy’s were sitting on your asses.”

“Alistair had a partner. A protege. It would stand to reason that perhaps you might have felt guilty after…” Officer Novak said, letting his sentence trail off suggestively. Dean rolled his eyes and stood up.

“I call in tips all the damn time. I kinda figured the response would be gratitude, not whatever bullshit this is. Look it up if you don’t believe me.”

“I’ve already looked you up. High school drop out. Never held a job longer than six months. Unemployed. And most interesting of all, you have a criminal record,” Novak said, tossing a file down on the table. Dean groaned, pushing his hands into his eyes.

“I was sixteen,” he muttered. “And there was this girl named Cassie who really wanted to go to a rally.”

“You stole a car.”

“I drove the family car without permission,” Dean corrected. “And my dad called me in to teach me a lesson.”

“Clearly you didn’t learn it,” Novak said, his voice an accusing growl. Dean remembered the frustration of being dragged home after being dumped by Cassie. The look of disappointment in his father’s face and how he had yelled at him right in front of Sam. Dean had never hated his father more than that moment and it would take some serious shit to top it as one of the worst nights of Dean’s life.

“Oh I learned a lesson. Just not the one he wanted to teach me,” Dean muttered. He stood up then and made his way to the door. Right after he opened it, he saw two officers on the other side with handcuffs and heard the familiar cadence of Novak reciting his Miranda Rights. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Give us a reasonable explanation,” Milton said, clearly meant to be the good cop of the duo. Dean’s eyes flicked around before landing on the crystal around Missouri’s neck, one of the cops that was holding up cuffs. Dean smiled before turning to the first two officers and putting a serious expression on his face.

“Okay, fine. I’m psychic.”

Missouri’s eyes widened and she dropped the handcuffs she had been holding out to him.

“I thought I felt a fellow medium, sensitive to the spirits all around us,” she said, suddenly smiling at Dean warmly. Dean smiled back and raised his eyebrows at Novak, daring him to contradict him.

“You’re not a psychic,” Novak said, his attention shifting to the other officer, who Dean realized was the cute guy who had been making coffee before. “Alfie, book him.”

Dean fell back agains the wall, hands clutched to his head and then turned to look at Alfie, who looked a little freaked out. “Don’t worry, this happens sometimes. What you should be worried about is your blood sugar. Does your girlfriend know that you’ve been cheating on the diet at work?”

Alfie looked back at Dean astonished. “How did you…? Oh my god, you’re really psychic!” he said, his whole face lighting up in delight.

“Lord almighty, don’t tell me you believe this nonsense too?” Novak muttered, stepping forward to cuff Dean himself since the other officers obviously weren’t going to. Dean turned around before he could reach him and looked the officer in the eye, giving him one last chance to let him go before he spilled the ace up his sleeve. Novak made to arrest him again and Dean once again pretended to get a vision.

“If I’m not psychic,” Dean challenged, “how come I know that you two are sleeping together?”

Novak did a good job of keeping his face blank but Officer Milton blushed a red so deep her hair looked dull. It still looked like Novak was going to arrest him, but Dean didn’t really know what else he could say at this point to get out of it. Luckily Officer Milton was convinced.

“Let him go, Cas,” she said. “We need to talk.”

“You heard the lady, ‘Cas,’” Dean said. “I’m going to go now. Though I leave you with one parting vision. The girlfriend started the fire.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Novak said, clearly irked at the use of his first name. Dean shrugged.

“The spirits aren’t always clear, but I’m sure you can figure out. Adios amigos,” Dean called out as he walked back to the front of the police station, Missouri trailing behind him and asking if he had any focusing crystals, or special methods of contacting spirits she should try. Dean told her that it came naturally to him and Missouri nodded sagely, saying that some people were just more in tune with the spirit world. Dean decided this was the best lie he’d ever told, and wished Sam was there to give him judgmental looks and huff about lying to the police being ‘unethical’.

**************

“Not fucking possible,” Cas said to Anna after they had interviewed Benny LaFitte and checked the timeline and his defensive wounds which corroborated his story. “They were probably talking in the lobby. That doesn’t make him psychic.”

“You really don’t think so?” Anna said, looking over to where Dean was having some kind of conversation with Missouri. He was a very animated guy, and Anna had seen some weird shit while working for the SBPD. A psychic wouldn't be that out of place.

“No, I don’t. He had a couple of lucky guesses. If you’re a good con, you’re bound to get a few.”

“It doesn’t matter how he knew. I can’t stay here,” Anna said, her eyes falling away from her partner. Cas went from glaring at the back of Dean’s head to turning to face Anna, sad confusion spread across his features. “I’ll be a laughingstock, Cas. Everybody’s going to know.”

“Would that really be so terrible?” Cas asked, unable to meet his partner’s eyes. Anna sighed.

“This was never serious Cas. You know that. But we’re done. I’ll request a transfer as soon as I can.”

“Alfie and Missouri won’t tell anyone,” Cas said, his voice growing more dead by the second.

“That’s not what this is about and you know it. I was only ever a rebound to you, and you haven’t even divorced your wife yet. It’s not like I don’t know the second she decided to give you the time of day again you’d dump me faster than a hot potato.”

“Do you really want to bring Meg into this?” Castiel asked, shoulders tensing.

“There is no this. I fucked up when I kissed you that first time, okay? So I’m leaving, and you’re going to have to deal with that fact sooner or later,” Anna said before stalking off. Cas stood there and watched as Dean strode past him and out the front door of the station. Cas made a mental note to find out what kind of car Winchester drove so he could nail him with a couple of speeding tickets to make him feel better about the disaster this day was turning into.

****************

“What is it?” Dean yawned into the phone that was ringing beside his bed. He tried to wake himself up as quickly as possible because the voice on the other side of the line spoke fast and self assured.

“Dean Winchester? This is Jody Mills, interim chief for the SBPD, and I’ve got a few questions for you.”

“Aren’t your cronies satisfied? I sent in my alibi, and I told you why I know the tips. So you can all leave me alone now.”

There was a pause on the other side of the line, brief but tangible. Then it was shattered by the Chief’s next sentence.

“Actually, I was wondering if you were interested in a job.”

“What kind of job?”

“Mowing lawns. What do you think? We’ve got a hard case and if you’re really psychic, well, we could use you. And if you’re not we’ll throw you in the slammer for impeding a police investigation. Sound like fun?”

Dean considered the question for about half a second. Sam might even have called it a record where Dean and bad ideas were concerned.

“I could do that.”

“I hear you’re John Winchester’s kid. He was a good cop. You don’t seem much like him.”

“Well thank god for that,” Dean said back bitterly. He heard Mills laugh over the phone before leaving him information of when he should report to the station in the morning. Dean looked at his phone, considering calling Sam to talk everything over, but ultimately decided it would be much more fun to visit.

*********************

“Sammy!” Dean said, making his little brother jump from his computer.

“What are you doing here?” Sam asked, mad at himself for letting Dean get the jump on him. He thought work was safe, but hell he should know by now that no place is ever safe from his older brother.

“So is it Jess or Sarah?” Dean asked after throwing himself down into the seat across from Sam. Sam sighed, and tried not to let his expression change.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, Sarah. Nice. I like her,” Dean said.

“Okay, how could you possibly know that?” Sam demanded, looking away from his computer screen to glare at his older brother.

“The message app you’re on reflects off your eyes.”

“You need a hobby,” Sam said, before typing a quick goodbye to Sarah and logging off of the chat site he’d been on. “What do you want?”

“That’s a loaded question Sammy. My first instinct is to answer world peace, but then I start getting wrapped up in the implications and possibility of that wish being corrupted into something terrible, and then I realize what I really want is for Natalie Portman to fall desperately in love with me. But that’s not why I’m here.”

“Well are you going to get to the point?” Sam asked. Not that he actually had any work left to do that day. He got paid on commission, and he’d already gone through a full day’s work, so he was just killing time until he could clock off. Hence messaging Sarah.

“Let’s start a private detective agency,” Dean said. Sam searched Dean’s face for a couple seconds to make sure this wasn’t just a joke before realizing that, yes, his brother was being serious.

“No.”

“C’mon Sam, it’ll be just like on Angel!”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but unlike you I actually have a job.”

“Well that’s just rude. You know I’m a free spirit, Sammy. I can’t be tied down to one career path. That’s why this is perfect. The situation will always be changing, always a new puzzle to solve, and it’s not like I don’t have the skills.”

“No.”

Dean frowned for a moment, thinking through the best method to get his brother to do what he wants.

“Well, the police think I’m a psychic so I already have a case.”

“Wait, hold on a second, the police think you’re what?” Sam said. Dean smiled nonchalantly, pleased to have gotten his brother’s attention back.

“Psychic. Because I am, if anybody asks you. And I need you there Sam. You know I don’t do well around authority figures. I need someone to be polite and sensitive. And we need to leave in the next five minutes or we’re going to be late.”

“I don’t know why you think I’m going to do this,” Sam muttered, reflexively catching his coat when Dean threw it to him, but looking back at his computer and ignoring Dean again.

“Well, the case is about a serial killer,” Dean said casually. Sam looked up.

“Just for today?” he asked hesitantly. Dean knew he’d gotten him.

“Just for today.”

****************

“Officer Novak!” Jody shouted, leaning just outside her office. She wasn’t surprised when the man appeared by her side almost instantly, seemingly out of nowhere. She’d gotten used to it, so she stepped aside slightly to let the officer enter her office. “This is your new partner, Charlie Bradbury. Bradbury, this Castiel Novak. You two are going to be working on cases together, so I’d suggest you get to know each other fairly quickly.”

 

“Officer Bradbury, it’s good to meet you,” Castiel said politely, reaching out to shake his new partner’s hand. Cas did his best not to let thoughts of Anna flood his mind. The speed with which she’d gotten a transfer was ridiculous, though not unexpected considering that the Miltons had friends in high places. It just hurt that the second her reputation was threatened she’d been willing to leave Cas as fast as she possibly could.

“Oh, you can call me Charlie,” Charlie said with a quick grin, shaking his hand excitedly. Cas could tell from her youth and exuberance that she was definitely very new and likely had little experience. He tried not to take it as an insult that Chief Mills hadn’t assigned him a more experienced partner. “So what are we working on?”

“There’s a been a series of murders, characterized by mutilation of the body prior to decapitation. We’ve caught the man who was behind most of them, but we suspect based on slight variations in patterns among the victims that he wasn’t working alone. For one thing, the victims were all male until about six months ago, and then female bodies began to show up that fit the pattern,” Jody Mills said, looking over the case file before handing it to Officer Novak. “Oh, and one more thing, I’ve hired someone on to help you two with the case.”

Castiel bristled at the idea he would need special help to solve any case.

“I’m sure that’s not necessary,” he said. Chief Mills gave him a stern look until he dropped his eyes, though his jaw and fists were still clenched. He respected the chief, but he often found her infuriating in the decisions she made, many of which were unorthodox and failed to comply entirely within the rules.

“Well, I say it is,” she said at last. “And it looks like he’s here. You remember Dean Winchester, don’t you?”

Castiel stared at the chief for a moment before Dean Winchester indeed walked into her office dragging a tall, gangly kid behind him.

“You can’t be serious,” Castiel said. “You want him to help?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Sorry, I don’t think I’m caught up on what’s going on here,” Charlie said, peering around her nervously.

“This is Dean Winchester, he’s a psychic and he’s going to be helping you and Officer Novak on your latest case. Who is your associate?” Jody asked Dean.

“This is Sammy-“

“Sam.”

“What he said. He’s my brother and he helps focus the spirits when they’re being stubborn.”

“Wait, are you actually psychic?” Charlie said, looking at Dean skeptically. Dean looked her up and down before pretending to get another one of his visions. He had taken in her obviously made up name, slightly nervous demeanor, and a patch where there had been a tattoo on the inside of her wrist but was now removed.

“Stalkers suck, don’t they?” Dean said. Charlie’s jaw dropped. Jody raised an impressed eyebrow for Castiel’s benefit, but Castiel ignored them both in favor of glaring at Dean again.

“Holy shit,” Charlie whispered. Sam rolled his eyes. He’d long since gotten used to his brother’s tricks. Their dad had tried to teach him how to do this stuff, but Sam had outright refused to do anything his dad asked him as a kid, and he didn’t have an eidetic memory like Dean did. He never would have stood a chance if he was pretending to be a psychic. Not that he couldn’t hold his own in other areas. Like setting people at ease.

“Don’t worry, sometimes things just come to him. Dean is very discreet with other people’s secrets though.”

Castiel snorted and turned back to the chief, pleading with his eyes for her to reconsider. She showed no sympathy however, and Castiel resigned himself to having to work with the Winchester brothers for however long it took to solve the case.

******************

“I’m impressed,” Sam said to Dean as they drove behind Charlie and Officer Novak to the most recent crime scene, where another body had been found just that morning.

“About what?” Dean asked, focusing on driving the car his dad had given Sam after Dean had run away from home at seventeen. Not that Dean was bitter or anything.

“It’s been three whole days and you still haven’t hit on Charlie,” Sam said. Dean rolled his eyes.

“First of all, I don’t hit on every chick I see. Second of all, you do know Charlie’s gay right?”

“How do you figure?” Sam asked.

“Well, her small crush on Jody was kind of a tip off,” Dean said. Sam looked confused at that, so Dean continued. “Paperwork is pretty much the same everywhere. Nobody needs that much help with learning a new system. Especially not Charlie. She’s a smart chick. Which I can appreciate in a platonic manner, thank you very much Sam.”

“Name the last straight girl who was your age that you talked to platonically then.”

“Gwen.”

“Gwen’s our cousin.”

“The parameters you set still apply.”

Sam huffed at this and then sulked for the rest of the ride.

*******************

Dean was about to cross over the yellow police tape when a hand on his shoulder stopped him. He turned to see Novak preventing him from going any further.

“You can’t go past the tape,” he said, indicating with his head that Alfie should watch him. Alfie gave Dean an apologetic tilt of his head but stood in front of Dean nevertheless.

“How am I supposed to help if I can’t see the victim?” Dean called after Novak’s retreating figure. The officer looked back and narrowed his eyes.

“I thought you were supposed to be psychic. ‘Sense’ what happened.”

Dean waited until Novak had turned his back before flipping him off.

“Did he seriously just use air quotes?” Dean asked Sam. Sam shrugged. “Whatever. Hey Alfie?”

“Yeah?” Alfie asked, smiling over at Dean guilelessly. Dean almost felt bad for taking advantage of such a genuinely nice guy, but figured if he caught a serial killer he’d probably be forgiven.

“The chief called a little while ago. She wanted to talk to you about something. She said it had something to do with the time you requested off?” Dean said hesitantly, as though he were trying to remember the details. As soon as he finished speaking, Alfie was running off. Sam turned to look at Dean.

“What’d that mean?”

“Oh, Alfie’s planning on proposing. He wants to make sure he can get time off for his honeymoon without risking his job. I saw him fiddling with his pocket, where the ring likely is, and checking out vacation destinations yesterday.”

“Oh. Good for Alfie.”

Dean looked quickly around and then tore open the police tape and held it out in front of him as he walked over to where Charlie and Officer Novak were examining the body and the surrounding area. Dean looked and saw that the woman was blonde, mid twenties, and lacked any clothing which revealed the detailed patterns carved into her skin. Her head was about ten feet from the rest of her body, looking disturbingly like the killer had taken time to fix her makeup.

“I can’t do this, Dean,” Sam said, looking away. “I’m going to be sick.”

“No you’re not. Get a grip.”

Novak seemed to realized at that point that Alfie hadn’t managed to keep Dean and Sam out.

“What the hell are you doing on my crime scene?”

“You said we couldn’t go past the yellow tape. I’m not past the yellow tape,” Dean responded, holding the tape he’d torn out in front of him. He eyed the surrounding area and realized there was no way someone could do what had happened if they didn’t kill the victims elsewhere, thoroughly drain them of blood and then leave them displayed for the police to find. He also notice the newest mutilation was especially brutal, the cuts running deeper than they had on any other victim, and some of the designs sloppy, unlike the cold calculated cuts of Alistair. “I’m sensing that whoever did this is angry. Very angry. He does not like the fact Alistair’s in jail.”

“Well, it would make sense,” Charlie agreed. “Alistair taught him everything he knew. They were likely close. These kinds of relationships tend to develop either romantically, or a kind of parent child teaching relationship. Considering the difference in preference of victims, I’m going to guess the latter.”

“He has to be killing them somewhere on the docks,” Castiel said. “That’s the only way he could do this without getting caught.”

Dean knelt a little closer to the body, still holding his yellow tape in front of him, to Charlie’s amusement. Dean saw dirt under the girl’s fingernails along with splinters in some of her fingers. He also noticed that some of the bruising on her neck extended below what it should for decapitation and remembered the other victims’ necks had been spotless compared to the rest of their skin. Dean started to shake slightly for effect before faking a trance. Dean suddenly leapt into his little brother’s arms. Sam sighed and tried to make Dean let go of him. Dean fell limp to the ground, convulsing once before looking up at the irritated blue eyes that were staring down at him.

“Give me a hand?” Dean asked Novak. He was pulled roughly to his feet before the officer took a step back and raised one eyebrow, clearly expecting something. Dean decided not to disappoint.

“This victim was different. Most of the time they kill strangers for their game but this was personal. She tried to escape. All the other victims were surprised, but this one he played with.”

Dean took a close look at the woman’s face, Novak’s objections about Dean being on the crime scene having suddenly evaporated. Then Dean froze. Fuck, it couldn’t be.

“Jenny,” Dean said, clearing his throat. “The girl’s name is Jenny.”

***************

“Latest victim’s name was Jenny Cartwright. She worked at Lester’s 24 hour diner and was last seen two days ago when she left work at six in the evening. We would put the time of kidnapping within a couple of hours of that. It’s been almost twenty four hours since she’s been killed at this point, which means we have a window of time to establish exactly where she was and what the killer wanted with her.”

Charlie nodded to her partner, trying not to picture the poor girl in her head. The fact that she’d been cut up so badly while she was still alive made Charlie shiver. For the first time since she’d met him, even Dean was oddly silent. Sam looked like he was about to puke or faint. Or both.

“Good work, Novak,” Jody said, looking over the data added to the case file. “Charlie, did you manage to look through the surveillance footage near Ms. Cartwright's home.”

“I did, but there is some corrupted footage. If anything happened, it happened then. We’ve got about fifteen unaccounted minutes.”

“Dean, you have anything to add?”

Dean looked up and clapped his brother on the shoulder before smiling and shaking his head.

“Nope. See you guys, later. Cassie, stay classy,” Dean said, leaving before the officer could tell him off for being informal, or whatever excuse Novak had to hate him now. Sam walked behind him.

“How can you be like this?” Sam asked. “That… that girl…”

“I know what happened to the her,” Dean said roughly, cutting his brother off. “It’s just, I can’t work if things are serious. I doubt myself. I can’t think anything through. So if telling a few jokes stops this bastard, so be it. I know you don’t get it, just don’t fucking look at me like I don’t care, because trust me, I do.”

“Do you know who did it?” Sam asked, taking the hint and changing the subject.

“Not yet. We’ll just have to investigate,” Dean said before heading out to Sam’s car, having pickpockets the keys from his little brother already.

*****************

“When you said investigate, this was not what I thought you meant,” Sam said, trying his best to barricade the door from Gordon Walker, local muscle for hire. The steady banging on the other side of the door had both Sam and Dean on edge.

“What, are you telling me you didn’t want to be chased and almost murdered? Where’s your sense of adventure Sammy?” Dean asked before taking out his phone and texting a number he’d recently added.

“Please tell me that you’re calling the police,” Sam said, doing his best to shove whatever he could against the weakening door.

“I’m texting the police. Big difference. Comes off way less desperate,” Dean said.

“We are desperate!”

“Well, they don’t need to know that.”

The steady sound of someone trying to smash their way through a door distracted them both as they waited for back up to arrive.

“I’m going to rip your throats out!” Gordon threatened.

“Good luck. You can’t even break through a door!”

“Don’t antagonize him Dean,” Sam whispered angrily.

“SBPD, drop your weapon and get on the floor!” shouted a deep voice that could only belong to Novak. The banging stopped and Dean could hear the click of handcuffs. Then Charlie’s chipper voice floated through the barricaded door.

“You guys alright?” she asked.

“Sam’s suffering from being a first rate bitch, but otherwise I think we’ll survive,” Dean called back. Sam refused to help un-barricade the door after that comment.

******************

“Gordon Walker confessed last night,” Novak informed the chief. Sam, Dean, and Charlie stood slightly behind him, exchanging glances.

“Bullshit. Gordon’s not a mastermind of anything,” Dean said. Novak grit his teeth and turned to look at Dean.

“He confessed.”

“So what?”

“Mr. Winchester,” Jody said, breaking up the impending fight. “We appreciate your input, but the case is over. You’ll be compensated and we’re definitely interested in working with you in the future, but at the moment I’d appreciate if you left the premises so our officers can work on their paperwork. Am I understood?”

Dean tore his eyes from Novak, gave a brief nod and walked out.

“It’s not over is it?” Sam asked, sounding resigned.

“What, you really think Walker did this?”

“You said he did!”

“Well, that was just because of the interview I got with Jenny’s neighbor. He took her, that’s for sure, but he just did it for the money. The guy’s a raging psychopath. We’re looking for a mostly calm and collected psychopath. Big difference.”

“And the confession?”

“He’s scared.”

Dean stopped walking suddenly. He didn’t know how he hadn’t seen it before. Of course. There was no way there wasn’t enough evidence, enough DNA to identify who was killing the victims. Unless someone knew exactly what they were doing when cleaning up after themselves. And knew how to corrupt surveillance cameras. Someone that had access to evidence. Someone that had access to Gordon Walker if he didn’t fall in line.

“Dude,” Dean said, stopping suddenly. Sam walked backwards until he’d reached his brother.

“What?”

“It’s a cop. It has to be one of the cops. See, I knew I would find the heart of all evil in a police station. Well, that or a vegan bakery.”

“Dean, you can’t just go around accusing people. You’re supposed to be psychic, you’re supposed to just know.”

“Keep your voice down!”

“Okay fine. So we’re looking for a calm and collected guy who sometimes murders people. Do you actually have a suspect?”

“I’m working on it,” Dean said, looking around the station. Three people met Dean’s criteria for being a suspect. This criteria included being male, in decent physical shape, being naturally reticent in nature, and the slightly hunted look that came from having secrets. First candidate, Officer Zeke Newton. Dean wasn’t sure what was up with him, but he had shifty eyes and was always sweating like a virgin in a whorehouse, so on the list he went. Next was Officer Sinclair, who seemed to keep to himself mostly, and wasn’t well liked by the other officers. Dean had overheard some gossip saying that he could get a little rough during arrests. And the final suspect was…

“You don’t think Novak has anything to do with this?” Sam asked. “I mean, he really seems pissed off about you working the case. Maybe it’s not all professional pride. Maybe he thinks you’ll catch onto him. And didn’t you say he tried to have you arrested after you turned Alistair in?”

“Sam, shut up, here he comes,” Dean hissed. “Hey Cassie! Off to do paperwork? I suppose not every bit of the job is as glamorous as catching a killer.”

Novak stopped on his way to his desk and turned slowly to face Dean.

“Mr. Winchester, I realize the chief is falling for this little act you’re putting on, but don’t think for a second I don’t see right through you. Whatever source you have, whatever trick you’re employing, trust me when I say I will find it and I will expose you if you don’t. Back. Off.”

After that Castiel continued walking and joined Charlie at her desk where she was showing off a new program she’d made that would make filing reports twenty five percent more efficient, or at least that’s what Dean had heard when he’d stopped by her desk before seeing the chief.

“We’ll keep an eye on him,” Dean said to Sam who had stepped protectively between Dean and Novak the second he had started speaking. “And chill with the guard dog thing, Sam. What are you going to do? Sell him office supplies to death?”

“Shut up,” Sam said. He paused for a moment before clearing his throat. “You know… dad moved back a couple weeks ago.”

“No.”

“Dean, whoever this person is, they’re targeting you now. You know that finding Jenny wasn’t a coincidence. Whatever else he was, dad was a good cop. Maybe he can-“

“I said no, Sam. Drop it.”

Sam sighed and went back to the Impala so he could drive back to work. Dean waved him off before sneaking back into the station to do a little spying. He was not going to see his dad.

****************

“Dean,” John said after opening his door. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s good to see you too,” Dean huffed, pushing his way past his dad. “Nice place.”

“It’s temporary. I was thinking about buying the old house back,” John said cautiously. “Look, kid, I’m not trying to push you out, I’m not, but you haven’t talked to me in years. What’s going on?”

“I might have this thing. Say I need to find a dirty cop, how would I do that?” Dean asked. John could feel his face twist with anger.

“Oh, is this about the little stunt you’re pulling down at the station?”

“Let me guess: Jody called you?” Dean said.

“Yeah, actually. And you know, she said the funniest thing. That you were a psychic. Last I checked, you didn’t even go to church kid. And you want to know what? Psychics and private investigators were the worst part of being a cop, so it’s good to see you’re doing a real bang up job on your career choices.”

“You know the funny thing is I don’t remember asking your opinion,” Dean said, already wishing he’d never come. “So are you going to help me or not?”

John calmed himself slowly before giving his son a considering look. Sure, Dean had disappointed him in every way possible, but that didn’t change the fact… the kid was his son, and maybe he missed him sometimes. At least Sam still called, even with the differences between them, but after Dean had run away from home to live with his mom…

“Close your eyes,” John said.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“You want my help or not? Close your eyes.”

Dean sighed and closed them.

“How many bowls?”

“Five. Two red, one green, one glass, and a floral ceramic piece that mom would have broken and thrown out by now,” Dean answered. John flinched at the mention of his ex-wife, but decided not to mention it.

“What was on the television?”

“Channel seven news.”

“Alright, good warm up. Now, tell me what am I making for dinner?”

“How the fuck am I supposed to-?”

“Figure it out.”

Dean squeezed his eyes shut and thought through the food that had been on the table along with the food his dad made for them when they were kids. Then Dean remembered the receipt he’d seen hanging out of the grocery bag in the corner.

“Fish. You went this morning. Kind of a poor haul, since you hit up the spot near Pastor Jim’s.”

“Okay, I’ll help you,” John said. Dean opened his eyes and tried not to feel pleased about the fact that his dad seemed suitably impressed. “The thing about a dirty cop, Dean, is that the partner always knows. Interview the partner.”

“She’s new. And the last one was sleeping with him.”

“Doesn’t matter, you’ll get a reaction. Some kind of doubt, some bit of uncertainty. It’s not enough for a conviction, but dirty cops don’t have partners that trust them completely, even if they’re willing to protect them, you understand?”

“Okay. See you dad,” Dean said, swinging out the front door to get onto his motorcycle he knew John hated. John sighed watching his son leave, but decided to get back to preparing his dinner and reminded himself Rome wasn’t built in a day. Maybe he and Dean would be okay again. Eventually.

*****************

“Hey Charlie,” Dean said, plopping himself down in front of her desk. Charlie looked up and gave him a half smile before going back to her paperwork. “What, you’re just going to ignore me?”

“That was the plan,” Charlie said. Dean looked over her desk, noticing the picture of her and an Asian looking kid dressed up at what looked like a comic convention.

“I was just wondering who you’re favorite superhero was,” Dean said nonchalantly. Charlie clicked her tongue, and didn’t look up, but Dean saw that her eyes had stopped flicking back and forth, meaning she was no longer reading. “Because I like Batman, but Sammy thinks Superman is the best hero. Says Batman can’t even fly, the little punk.”

“Punk is right. But you’re both wrong. Best superhero is Black Widow,” Charlie said, still not looking away from her computer screen. Dean snorted.

“You just think ScarJo is hot,” he countered. That caught Charlie’s attention a bit more, though she didn’t ask how he knew, because duh, psychic.

“That is so not true! She’s an epic super spy. What’s not to like?”

“She doesn’t even have powers.”

“Neither does Batman, genius.”

“Touche. So, you have a minute to talk to me?”

Charlie sighed and finally turned to look at Dean.

“What do you want?”

“What do you think of Novak?”

Charlie’s brow furrowed.

“He seems like he’s good at his job. He doesn’t like you much. He’s kind of… stern. Likes rules.”

“But as a person, what do you think of him?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Look, you and I both know Gordon didn’t kill Jenny. He’s a muscle guy, and whoever did kill her had to be someone who thinks of themselves as an artist. He ain’t it. So, I’m asking you, what do you think of Officer Castiel Novak?”

Charlie’s eyes widened and she glanced fearfully around her, as though expecting her partner to appear out of thin air.

“You don’t really think…”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“Well why are you asking me? I just got here. I don’t know anything.”

Dean sighed. He’d have to find a way to interview Officer Milton after all.

“Don’t sweat it. Just keep your eyes open, okay?”

After Dean left, Castiel made his way over to Charlie’s desk.

“What did he want?” he asked his new partner. Charlie jumped about a foot before looking back at Castiel.

“Nothing,” she squeaked out. Castiel gave her an odd look, but shrugged and went back to his own desk.

That afternoon as Charlie made her way back to her car she felt a sharp pain in the back of her head before the world went black.

*****************

“No.”

Dean searched Anna’s face for any sign that she was lying, but nothing came up.

“And you’re sure-“

“Cas is as clean as they come. I’m pretty sure the worst thing you could accuse him of is not meeting dress code standards. So, no, I don’t think he’s your guy.”

“Pardon if I’m a little skeptical that you would be telling the truth,” Dean tried. Anna bristled.

“You think I would protect him if he was doing something wrong? What, because we hooked up a couple of times? Now I don’t know why you suspect him, or what the hell this is all about, but I’m telling you, Cas has nothing to do with it.”

Dean figured there wasn’t anything else he would be getting out of Anna, so he thanked her and left only to run into Officer Novak outside.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he said without preamble.

“Well, congrats. You found Waldo.”

“Charlie Bradbury has been missing for at least twelve hours. You were one of the last people seen talking to her.”

“Wait, Charlie went missing?”

“Yes. She did. But you already knew that didn’t you?”

“Wait, so you think I’m a suspect?”

“You knew who the girl was before.”

“I sensed her name,” Dean lied.

“Bullshit. Just know that whatever you do to Officer Bradbury, I will repay you two times over. Now tell me where she is.”

“I’m not the killer. But I know who is,” Dean said, realizing with sudden clarity that he’d seen a picture on Officer Sinclair’s desk of him with a two foot fish. “And I know where they are.”

Novak looked like he wanted to punch him out but gave a small nod to indicate that Dean should lead the way. Dean started toward his motorcycle, but Cas grabbed hold of his arm and shoved him into the passenger side of his car.

“You’re not leaving my sight until she’s safe,” he growled. Dean rolled his eyes, because he wasn’t the fucking murderer, but gave Novak instructions on how to get to the shack that had been listed online as registered to Mr. Sinclair when he’d looked it up on his phone. Novak called the police station for back up. Dean called Sam and told him what was happening, and Sam said not to do anything stupid until he got there.

****************

Sam was the first on the scene, which surprised him until he realized that Novak and Dean were likely stuck in traffic. Sam hesitantly approached the shack, picking up a large piece of drift wood as he snuck closer. He knew he should wait for the police to get there, but thinking about Charlie tied up and being tortured made him reckless. He burst through the door, surprising the officer, who immediately stepped away from what he was doing. Sam saw Charlie, unconscious and bloody and resisted the urge to faint.

“Get away from her,” he said, his voice shaking slightly. Officer Sinclair seemed to get over his initial surprise and started laughing before pulling out a gun and pointing it at Sam’s head.

“You came here alone. Dumb move,” the officer said. Sam swallowed, staring at the barrel pointed at him. Then the gun was shifted to point at Charlie and he let out a slight yell of distress.

“You’re better anyway. Your corpse washes up and I bet that brother of yours will stop poking around where he doesn’t belong,” the officer said thoughtfully. “Do what I say and I’ll let her go.”

Sam looked at Charlie and tried to tell himself that it was just until Dean got there. Then the police would see what was happening. He just needed to protect her until then.

“You’ll let her go?” he said, his voice coming out strangled. Officer Sinclair smiled and the next moment he had put his gun in his waistband and was tying Sam to a chair near Charlie. Sam was doing his best to keep his breathing under control. Fuck, he couldn’t do this. He started to fight against the bonds on his wrists, but the officer just laughed and hit him across the face. Now Sam was really terrified and he started to shout before a rag was stuffed into his open mouth. Just as the officer grabbed a knife and brought it closer to Sam, Sam’s eyes widened and he watched helplessly as the officer made the first cut.

Then a shot rang out and Sinclair fell to floor. Sam looked up to see a barely conscious Charlie holding the gun that had been in Sinclair’s waistband. Right after he realized what had happened Dean and Novak burst through the door, Chief Mills and several SBPD officers right behind them. Sinclair, who was still alive, rolled over groaning, clutching his side where the bullet had torn through him. Charlie weakly dropped the gun she was holding. Novak was by her side in an instant.

“Good work Charlie,” he said, untying the ropes that bound her and gently lifting her up. “That was one hell of a shot.”

“I play a lot of Halo,” she muttered with a weak smile. Sinclair had only managed to cut up her arms so far, so it was mostly blood loss that Castiel was worried about.

Dean was not as gentle with Sam.

“You fucking idiot.”

“I knew you guys were coming,” Sam said, defending himself. “He said he’d let her go if I-“

“He wasn’t actually going to let her go. You do know that right? Jesus Christ Sam, this guy is a fucking serial killer. No wait, sorry I forgot, you have a weird thing about serial killers. Well, guess what? They kill people! Now is not the time to indulge your weird obsession.”

“I’m fine,” Sam complained. “Can you just untie me, please?”

“No.”

“Dean!”

While all of this was happening, Alfie was cuffing Sinclair and reciting his Miranda rights. Dean gave the officer a thumbs up and Alfie looked down shyly, before hauling up Sinclair and leading him back to the police car. Jody watched the scene unfold and helped Novak get Charlie into an ambulance.

“That was pretty good, Winchester,” she said after Novak and Charlie had been sent on their way and Dean was still refusing to untie Sam.

“Thanks.”

“Good to have you on our side,” she said, already planning on adding Dean Winchester to her list of consultants.

*****************

Dean and Sam visited Charlie the next day at the hospital. Sam brought flowers and Dean brought a plastic ring with a spider on it. Charlie took one look and laughed, the color that she had lost last time they’d seen her mostly returned to her face.

“You calling me a superhero, Winchester?” she said, happily putting the ring on her pinky finger, the only one it would fit on. Dean smiled and winked. “Thanks for the flowers Sam.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“And thanks for your attempt to try rescue me. Even though it didn’t make any sense, I appreciate the gesture.”

Sam laughed at that one, while Dean gave him an “I told you so” face. Behind them someone cleared their throat. The Winchester brothers turned to see Novak standing at Charlie’s door.

“You alright?” he asked his partner, brushing past the two men like they weren’t there. Charlie rolled her eyes.

“Yes, I can actually talk to people without dying Cas. You know, you should go home. Get some sleep.”

Novak chuckled at Charlie worrying about him for a moment before nodding his agreement. He promised to visit Charlie the next day and then left her room. Dean excused himself and followed the officer out. Novak didn’t seem surprised, and had stopped so he could watch Charlie through the window a moment longer.

“Thank you,” he muttered to Dean when Dean stepped beside him. “She didn’t deserve to go out like that. She’s a good kid.”

“Don’t mention it. Just your friendly neighborhood psychic, here to help. Plus I kind of thought you were the murderer for a while so I suppose we’re even,” Dean said cheerfully, throwing an arm around Novak’s shoulder. Novak’s expression turned sour and he shook Dean’s arm off.

“Don’t let this make you think I believe you’re what you say you are,” he said, his voice even deeper than usually to match his irritation.

“Say it with me, Cassie. Dean Winchester is a psychic. Just admit it. You’ll feel so much freer and less like someone shoved a crowbar up your ass.”

“Go to hell,” Novak said before turning to leave. Dean smiled.

“Was it something I said?” he called after the officer. Novak just kept walking.

*****************

“Okay, Sam, you can open your eyes,” Dean said. Sam opened them and caught sight of a small building, the front of which had a window that had PSYCH written across it. Sam raised an eyebrow and caught his brother’s eye.

“And this is?”

“This, mon frère, is our new detective agency. Great isn’t it?”

“Why do we need a building?”

“Because we’re going to need to take private cases if this is going to be a full time job and I’m not doing business from my apartment. That would be totally unprofessional.”

“I’m not leaving Sandover.”

“Part time job. Same difference. C’mon Sammy, say it’s nice.”

Sam frowned for a second surveying the small building.

“It’s nice,” he admitted. Dean grinned and walked up to it.

“Oh look, I already have my first piece of mail,” he said excitedly. He opened the envelope and scanned the message before scowling. Sam laughed at his expression.

“What does it say?” he asked. Dean flipped it and showed him the notice that his motorcycle had been impounded for parking illegally outside the residence of one Anna Milton for days on end.

“Fucking Novak,” he said angrily, before shoving the notice in his pocket.

“You probably deserved it,” Sam said, opening the door to the building to check out the insides. Dean followed him in, deciding not to let the notice ruin his good mood.

“Home away from home Sammy. Our own little bunker to run operations,” Dean said.

“I said it was nice, Dean,” Sam said back, exasperated at his brother’s excitement.

“Yeah? Well it is. Now let’s get cracking Sammy. We’ve got cases to do.”


	2. What's In a Name?

Sam rolled his eyes as Dean stared longingly after Cassie for the millionth time. Eating lunch with his brother had gotten downright uncomfortable since the night Dean had been arrested. Of course it’s not like he could actually say anything, considering the fact anytime he brought up the divorce Dean made a face like he wanted to punch something. Cassie dumping him had just been the last straw as far as his brother’s happy go lucky attitude had been concerned. Sam sighed and picked at the french fries on his plate. Would it kill their school to have a salad bar?

“Hey Dean,” said a sweet voice, lifting Dean from his depressive moping. Sam looked across to see Lisa Braeden, one of the most beautiful senior girls at their school standing next to his brother. His jaw dropped.

“Hey Lis,” Dean said sadly. Sam watched in awe as Lisa’s face crumpled sympathetically and she sat next Dean with her own lunch tray. It’s not like Sam was without female interest of his own, but he just didn’t know how his older brother seemed to luck into smart, gorgeous, genuinely interesting girls everywhere he went. It wasn’t fair is what it was.

“You know what? Cassie didn’t deserve you if she was going to break up for you for something she convinced you to do. It sucks to see you like this. Usually you’re the life of chem, and now we all actually have to take notes everyday. I might actually pass the class Dean. This shift in worldview is too much for me to handle,” Lisa complained. Sam watched the slowly growing smile on Dean’s face and breathed a sigh of relief. Hey, he wasn’t going to judge Dean’s coping mechanisms as long as they worked. Sam had never really figured out how to make Dean feel better anyway. That had always been mom’s special gift. Not that that mattered much now with her moving halfway across the country after the divorce. Sometimes the only time Dean smiled was when she called, Sam thought glumly.

“I don’t know Lis. I kind of want you to stay another year. You might have to fail after all,” Dean said.

“There’s that smile,” Lisa replied, her thumb brushing along Dean’s cheek before the pair ate their lunch in companionable silence. Sam rolled his eyes and decided that really whatever attracted girls to his brother like flies to honey was ridiculously unfair.

******************Present Day***************************

“C’mon Sammy,” Dean whined to his brother over the phone.

“I told you I have work tomorrow. I’m not going out to a bar with you. Besides, you’re just gonna leave after half an hour with whoever agrees to come home with you anyway.”

“That is unfair and untrue. We’ve solved ten cases as of this morning. This calls for a celebration. Do you know how lame it is to celebrate alone?”

“Call Charlie.”

“Charlie’s busy.”

“I’m busy!”

“You know what? This is exactly why you got coal in your stocking for Christmas when you were nine.”

“I didn’t get coal. You stole all of my presents and hid them and then shoved dirt into my stocking.”

“Same difference.”

“Yeah, okay. Night Dean.”

“Sammy-“ Sam hung up. “Fuck it. Guess I’m going by myself tonight.”

********************

“Hey Benny,” Dean said, smiling up at the bartender. Ever since Dean had discovered that Benny tended a bar within fifteen minutes of his apartment he’d taken to going there almost exclusively. Benny always gave him a discount and they’d struck up a quick friendship since Dean helped clear his name after his ex-girlfriend Andrea tried to get him arrested. Plus, Dean had told Benny that he was psychic, and his ability to predict who was going to get into bar brawls had quickly endeared him to everyone who worked at Tommy’s. He had barely sat down before his usual scotch was placed in front of him.

“Dean. All by your lonesome?” Benny asked, his Southern drawl soothing and familiar. Dean shrugged.

“Won’t be leaving that way,” he said confidently. Benny laughed quietly at that and Dean turned to survey the bar. He finished his drink before grabbing another one and heading over to an attractive guy who looked to be there alone.

“Hey,” Dean said, sitting across from him. The other man looked up startled before composing his features and then smiling back.

“Uh, hi,” he said.

“My name’s Dean. I was wondering if I could buy you a drink?” Dean asked. It never got easier or less nerve wracking, trying to tell if a guy was going to be receptive. And maybe Dean had relied on stereotypes a bit for this one, but come on. An umbrella in his drink? Then again the slightly scared expression the other guy was wearing wasn’t exactly encouraging.

“Aaron. I’d love that,” he said. Dean narrowed his eyes and caught the man looking across the bar. Then he saw the reflection of some guys snickering off the napkin holder and sighed.

“Lose a bet?” he asked. Aaron’s eyes flicked back to him and he gulped, definitely scared again. “What do they want you to do?”

“How did you know…?” Aaron started, definitely uncomfortable.

“Doesn’t matter. What do they want you to do?”

“I need a number,” Aaron admitted, having the decency to at least look ashamed. Dean sighed and pulled out his pen, writing quickly on a napkin and passing it to Aaron.

“Mazel tov,” he said before making his way back to the bar. Benny looked over from where he had been refilling some college kid’s beer.

“Strike out?”

“Shut up.”

It was a little later that Dean finally stopped taking advantage of Benny’s teasing to score free drinks that he noticed the familiar mop of messy brown hair in the corner, a row of empty shot glasses in front of him.

“Novak?” Dean called out. Novak jerked up drunkenly before realizing who had called out his name. Then he started laughing, slightly hysterically.

“Of course,” he muttered. “Shoulda known that you’d be here.”

Dean pulled up a chair beside him, curious what would make the prim and proper officer become a sloppy drunk in a trench coat in the middle of the week. Dean didn’t exactly have a nine to five to get to, so that was usually his excuse, but Novak always seemed to be ready for action at any time. Seeing him so out of control was definitely an anomaly.

“Hey Cassie, what’s with the liquor store?” Dean asked, pointing to the row of shots in front of the officer. Novak just grinned, his eyes slightly wild.

“Oh, this is nothing,” he said, laughing. “You should see what I can really do.”

Dean frowned, incredibly confused at this point. He got up to leave but was stopped by Novak sloppily grabbing onto his arm.

“How do you do it, Dean?” he asked, eyes wide and imploring. Dean was pretty sure the most alarming thing about what had happened so far was that Novak had actually bothered to use his first name. “I don’t get it. Every case, and you just…” Novak trailed off, eyes glassing over for a second before he regained his train of thought. “It’s amazing is what it is.”

“Has hell frozen over?” Dean wondered out loud. Novak just started laughing again, before burying his head in his arms and staring intently at the empty shot glasses in front of him. Dean looked up at Benny and mouthed for him not to bring Novak anymore drinks.

“You want to know a secret?” Novak asked, suddenly sitting up. Dean steadied him so he didn’t fall off the stool.

“Not really,” Dean said, trying to figure out if anybody had brought Novak to the bar, and if so if they could take the officer off his hands and get him home safely. Unfortunately, it looked like Novak was there alone.

“Two years,” Novak whispered confidentially. “Tonight it’s been two years since Meg left me. Everybody else thinks it’s just been a couple of months. Shows what they know, right?”

“Novak,” Dean started uncertainly but was again cut off by the officer’s rambling.

“And the worst part is that if she walked back in the door tomorrow, I wouldn’t even question it. Isn’t that sad? God, I can’t even solve a damn case anymore. No wonder she didn’t want me.”

Dean opened and closed his mouth. He had no clue what to say here. This was definitely something that would never in a million years happen if Novak was sober. But still, having heard that, Dean wanted to help in some way. Sure, the guy pissed him off, but they still had to work together and if Novak was a little happier maybe he wouldn’t act like everything Dean did was a personal and deliberate affront to the SBPD and everything it stood for.

“C’mon Cassie. I’m sure that’s not true,” Dean tried. Novak gave him a sarcastic look which was at the very least in his usual repertoire and set Dean at ease slightly. “You’re a great cop. One of the best. Hey, didn’t you solve the Morningstar case?” Dean said snapping his fingers at the memory. Novak brightened momentarily before sighing and fiddling with one of the shot glasses.

“Had help. Someone called in a tip.”

“Oh yeah, the thing with the rings,” Dean said. Novak nodded before pausing.

“Was that you?”

“Well…”

“Figures,” he muttered, trying to call Benny over for another drink. Benny ‘conveniently’ didn’t see him and Novak growled in frustration before giving up.

“One case. You still have a ton of experience under you’re belt. You’ve done a lot of good, Cas,” Dean said. Novak shrugged.

“Not enough. You open your mouth and the whole world pays attention. I can’t even get Chief Mills to take a second look at the Vita suicide,” Novak grumbled.

“Why, what was wrong with that?” Dean asked. He hadn’t really looked at the case because it had seemed like a fairly straight forward suicide, but if Novak really thought there was something to it…

“It’s a small thing. Arianna Vita’s dress was ripped,” Novak said. “It just didn’t make sense. She overdosed, it wasn’t the kind of death that should have done that.”

“It could’ve happened before she took the pills,” Dean pointed out. Novak shook his head frantically.

“People like that don’t wear ripped clothes. Especially not before they do something that people will see. I’ve been around a while, and the richer they are, the nicer they dress before they…”

Novak motioned a finger across his neck.

“Nobody should die like that,” Novak continued sadly fingers tapping a pattern out across the bar top. “But there’s not much you can do. It’s just, when someone else takes a person’s life into their hands and decides whether they… that’s different. There’s someone out there who’s getting away with this, I just know it.”

There wasn’t much proof, even by Dean’s standards. But Novak just looked so damn sad. Dean made up his mind that instant that he was going to make sure Novak solved the next case, come hell or high water.

“You know what, Cassie? Stick to your guns. I think you’re right,” Dean said, startling him slightly by clapping him on the back. Novak squinted at him for a moment before sighing and looking back at the bar top. Dean debated just leaving Novak there but figured that he should at least make sure the officer made it home by taking the cab back to his apartment with him. Of course that was a fucking ordeal and Novak tried to insist he could pay himself, but also seemed to have lost the ability to determine where his wallet was. Eventually he just passed out and Dean paid the cab driver before dragging a half conscious Novak up the steps to his apartment. He tried to find Novak’s keys but gave up quickly and tried to pick the lock on the door. He had just about gotten it open when the door swung forward and a petite blonde girl with a gun pointed at him appeared. Dean froze.

“Back off,” she said, grabbing Novak with an ease that contrasted with her small stature. Dean figured the muscles on the girl must be intense, even though it was hard to see in the low lighting. Dean backed away quickly.

“Just making sure he got home safe. That’s it, I swear,” Dean said. The girl glared at him for a little while longer before she seemed to figure he was telling the truth. She lowered the gun and kicked Novak until he was something that resembled conscious again.

“Go to sleep, Cas,” she said. Novak swore at her before stumbling off to bed, the girl looking after him with a half sad smile. Then she turned her attention back to Dean.

“Thanks for looking after my brother. He’s not usually like this, it’s just been a rough week. You need cab fair or something?”

Dean realized this girl had no idea who he was. He decided not to enlighten her.

“I’m fine. Just wanted to make sure he got home okay,” Dean said. The blonde girl nodded her thanks and then closed the door. Dean made his way back to the cab and had it drive him back to his house. Before he fell into bed he reminded himself that tomorrow, he was going to get Novak’s case reopened and he was going to make damn sure Novak solved it.

*****************

“Jody!” Dean said as the chief of police walked through her door. Jody raised an eyebrow and set her briefcase down.

“Mr. Winchester. What are you doing in my office?” Jody asked. “And get out of my chair.”

Dean complied without protest. Normally he’d probably get yelled out more, but it was before Chief Mills had had her morning coffee, so she didn’t have the energy to deal with him yet, a fact he was planning on taking full advantage of.

“So,” Dean said brightly. “The spirits have been real chatty lately.”

“Have they?” Chief Mills muttered, greeting Alfie with a grateful smile when he brought in her daily dose of caffeine. “And what have the spirits been saying that couldn’t wait until later in the day. I didn’t even know you could wake up before ten.”

“I’m full of surprises,” Dean said. “There’s a girl. An Andy… Ava… Arianna. Yes, definitely Arianna. That’s whose been bugging me.”

“Arianna Vita?” Jody asked. “She committed suicide. Has Novak been bothering you? I told him to drop the damn-“

“What, Novak is worried too?” Dean interrupted, exaggerating his surprise. “I don’t know chief, this girl seems really upset. Like unfinished business upset. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to reopen the case.”

Jody sighed and rubbed a hand over her face.

“Winchester, you have to understand. Her family is grieving. They have a family business that’s just switched hands, and all the stress that that entails. Looking into this is going to open up wounds that are just barely healing. I can’t reopen this case on a feeling.”

“I’m sure. C’mon, haven’t you ever just known something?” Dean insisted. “Besides, first Novak thinks something is funny and then the spirit of Arianna Vita contacts me? Doesn’t it seem a little too coincidental?”

Jody Mills sighed before taking a long draught of her coffee and looking back up at Dean.

“Fine. you have a week to get something or we’re closing this down again. I’ll let Novak know-“

“I can do that,” Dean cut off Jody. She raised an eyebrow but shrugged. Dean exited her office and walked over to Novak’s desk and sat down on his chair, feet up on his desk to get a little shut eye before the detective came in. Before he closed his eyes he noticed a picture of the blonde girl and Castiel on his computer and the smaller picture of the two of them when they were younger with a girl with dark brown hair and a heart shaped face placed inconspicuously off to the side.

“Winchester, just what do you think you’re doing?” Novak asked.

“Sorry, you’re chair’s comfy.”

“Do you have a reason to be here?”

“Just wanted to give you this,” Dean said, throwing Novak a bottle of aspirin. Novak caught it, examined it for a moment and then looked back at Dean confused.

“Why?”

“Hangover.”

“Who has a hangover?” Charlie asked, walking up to Novak’s desk to watch the daily event of Dean and Cas bitching at each other. 

“Cassie,” Dean said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t drink,” Novak said, narrowing his eyes. At this point, Dean realized that Novak didn’t remember that he had seen Dean the night before.

“My mistake,” Dean said. “I just sensed last night was a difficult anniversary for you.”

“What?” Novak asked flatly. Well, Dean wasn’t going to try to touch that subject with a ten foot pole ever again.

“Nothing. By the way, Jody has a case for you guys. Something about the Vita suicide? She took another look and said something you said stood out.”

“She did?” Novak asked, frowning slightly now in confusion.

“Yeah. I haven’t been getting anything, but she insisted,” Dean said. Charlie eyed him and mouthed over Novak’s shoulder that they needed to talk. Dean nodded to her, causing Novak to turn to look at his partner who quickly stopped mouthing at Dean.

“Alright. Well, you’ve delivered your message. So you can get out of my chair now.”

“Sure thing,” Dean said, jumping up so he could call Sam. Charlie followed him and pulled him aside so they could talk.

“The chief said it was your idea to reopen the case,” Charlie said to him. “What’s with giving Cas the credit?”

“I don’t always need credit,” Dean said, mock offended. “Jeez, Charlie, what do you think I am, some kind of narcissist?”

“Well,” she said, quirking her head slightly in consideration before shaking herself out and refocusing. “Doesn’t matter. Look, I get that you two have this kind of rivalry or whatever, but I really wish you would quit it. Cas is a nice guy, and you haven’t let up since you met him.”

“I’m not pulling his leg this time.”

“Yeah right,” Charlie said.

“Look, don’t tell him that reopening the case was my idea okay? It just seems that Novak’s been going through a rough time lately. Honest to god, I just want to help him out.”

Charlie bit her lip considering the psychic’s sincerity before shoving her hand in Dean’s face, pinky stuck out.

“Pinky promise,” she said seriously.

“Really?”

“As in if you break it I get to cut off your pinky.”

“Medieval. I like it,” Dean said, lifting his own hand and and linking pinkies with Charlie. She shook it three times and then seemed satisfied.

“How can I help?” she asked, peeking over at Cas who was scowling down at the case file, absorbed in his work.

“Just make sure he solves the case. That’s all he needs is a little confidence boost.”

“Just one more question,” Charlie said. “Why are you doing this? You two aren’t exactly on good terms.”

“What? I can’t do something nice for someone without having mysterious motives?”

“I suppose there is a first time for everything,” Charlie mused.

“You wound me,” Dean said, faking a pout before slipping past Charlie so he could call Sam in for the case.

****************

“So let me get this straight. You want me to take the next couple of days off work so we can solve a case that might not even be a case, and then tell everyone that we didn’t solve it, the officer who may I remind you has had it out for you since we started this gig solved the case instead of us?”

“That sounds about right,” Dean answered.

“Why are we doing this again?”

“I thought you wanted me to lay off Novak. Didn’t you say I was being unprofessional and rude to him and just aggravating a potentially dangerous situation in which he reveals I’m not as psychic as I let people think I am?” Dean pointed out.

“I have work.”

“This is work. It’s a high profile suicide that might be a murder. Novak’s been trying to reopen this case and I managed to get it to go through, but if we’re going to help without him knowing, I need you to be there. Besides Sam, it’s no fun if I have to do everything myself.”

“You mean you want me there so that you have someone to show off to,” said Sam.

“I’ll fix the Impala for free next time you break it,” Dean offered.

“I don’t break the car.”

“Uh huh,” Dean said skeptically. Because Sam hadn’t let the air out of the tires on a dare in college. That had never happened.

Sam paused for a moment before conceding, knowing his brother would only show up to work and drag him away if he didn’t give in.

“Fine. Where are we going first?”

********************

“Bela Talbot?” Dean asked the harassed looking woman at the front of the restaurant. She held up a finger and pointed to the phone at her ear. Dean waited, catching the end of her conversation.

“It doesn’t matter if he ends up being the man’s kid. That doesn’t change what she wrote in her will,” Bela hissed into the phone. “What do you mean he might have a claim? Ari owned the restaurant, not some little unwanted bastard who-“ Bela paused for a moment before sighing heavily. “Yes alright, just take care of it.”

She turned to face Dean and Sam who were waiting patiently to speak with her.

“What do you two want?” she asked.

“Hello, my name’s Dean Young, and this is my partner Sammy the Moose Rudd. We heard that you were interested in expanding this place and we’re mighty interested in investing if you open up new locations.”

“Yes, of course,” Bela said, the slightly derisive look on her face smoothing out into a friendly smile. Dean noticed the carefully kept appearance and make up trying to cover bags beneath her eyes, as well as the ease with which she switched between personas to fit who she was speaking with. “And just to reassure you both, this establishment is very friendly to the LGBT community. Everyone is welcome at Vita’s.”

Sam started to sputter in his quick attempt to correct her but Dean elbowed him hard in the ribs before smiling back at Bela.

“Excuse him, he’s shy. Isn’t that nice, honey?” Dean asked Sam, holding back a snicker at the bitchy look his brother sent him. If they ever made annoying Sam Winchester into an Olympic sport, Dean was pretty sure he would get gold every time. “Yeah, Sam and I have always loved this old place, and if more locations were going to be opening up, well, that would be a real nice thing.”

An odd look crossed Bela’s face as she looked around her.

“Ari would have thought so, too,” she said quietly. She seemed to remember herself after a second and then smiled at them again. “Unfortunately, not everybody is likeminded. You would not believe the pressure I’ve been under recently.”

“Oh really? What kind of pressure?” Sam asked, falling into his familiar expression of sympathetic concern that often got people to open up. One of the reasons Dean knew he needed Sam to help him, because he more often than not would make a joke at the expense of the person he was supposed to be sympathizing with.

“The late Mr. Vita was apparently not as family minded as he would have his children believe,” Bela confided. “Apparently he has another kid besides Ari and Gio. A Kevin Tran who just graduated from college. He seems to be under the impression that he has some kind of legal claim over this place. Don’t worry though,” Bela rushed to assure them. “He doesn’t have a legitimate case. The only reason anyone is giving him the time of day is that they don’t like that Arianna left the business to someone outside the family. If Gio had any interest in running the place they would insist that he should keep it.”

“Don’t worry, we don’t scare easy. Besides, it’s about the family feel, not about which family owns it,” Dean said.

“Exactly. Well, if you two want to hear more details, I can arrange a meeting with my financial advisor and we can meet with you both this Friday. I’m afraid I have some matters that need resolving at the moment,” Bela said, pulling out her phone and tapping into it before raising her eyebrow at Sam and Dean.

“Your financial advisor?” Dean asked.

“Crowley. He’s excellent at making deals that are satisfactory to all parties. Friday?”

“Friday sounds perfect,” Sam said. Bela entered it in and told them when and where they could expect to find her.

“Well, Mr. Young, Mr. Rudd, it was nice meeting both. I look forward to doing business with you,” Bela said.

“Likewise,” Dean answered. As soon as Bela was out of earshot Dean turned to Sam. “Well that was fishy.”

“What part of that was fishy, Dean?” Sam asked.

“Why would Arianna, who likely knows people were going to be pissed off about Vita’s leaving the family write that Bela gets the restaurant in her will? Politics is everything to these people.”

“They were close. Which you should know. You’re the one who reads through trash mags,” Sam pointed out.

“Something’s not right about her,” Dean insisted.

“That doesn’t mean she’s guilty,” Sam said. Dean held up a finger to quiet his brother. “No, I’m not going to shut up just because you think someone is-“

“Hi, what’s your name?” Dean said, speaking over Sam. A girl who had been cleaning up a table realizes Dean is looking at her and straightens up. Her name tag read Marlene. “Marlene, hi. I was wondering if we could ask a couple of questions on what it’s like to work here.”

“Sure,” the woman answered, her voice slightly affected in a way that made it clear to Sam and Dean that she was deaf. “What would you like to know?”

“Just what was it like working under Arianna Vita?” Dean asked.

“I’m new,” Marlene hedged. “I never met any of the Vitas. Ms. Talbot isn’t a very nice person, though, in all honesty.”

“Yeah?” Sam asked. Marlene’s eyes flicked to him so she could read his lips. “Why’s that?”

“It’s funny the things people will say when they think that you won’t understand them,” Marlene said. Sam laughed a little at that. “She does not associate with good men and women. I would not do business with her if I were you. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

“Uh, thanks, Marlene,” Sam said, doing his best to remember the sign for the words he’d just said. Marlene’s amused expression and correction had Sam slightly red faced.

“Don’t worry,” she said when she saw him look down embarrassed. “It’s nice that you tried. It’s more than most people do.”

“Well, thanks for speaking with us Marlene,” Dean said. He gave Sam a face that clearly said ‘I told you Bela is fishy’.

“It was no trouble,” Marlene said. After the two men had left she took her fifteen minute break and walked around to the back of the restaurant, making sure she wasn’t followed. When she knew she wouldn’t be observed, she sent a video call to Mildred, her supervisor.

Mildred signed a greeting. The woman the Winchesters had met as Marlene spoke out loud since she needed her hands to use the phone.

“There were two men here today asking Bela questions. One of them is the psychic that was in the newspaper.”

Mildred spoke slowly so that any glitches in the video would still make it easy for Eileen to read her lips.

“Do you think he’s the real deal? He looks like a real cutie,” she said. Eileen rolled her eyes at Mildred’s comment. They had been working together a long time and to say that Eileen was the more professional of the two would be an understatement.

“One of these days I will not wear the camera,” Eileen said. Mildred grinned at her before cutting back to business.

“If he is a psychic, we can’t have him blowing your cover. Especially if the police get involved. Get out, and we’ll reassign you.”

 

“I do not believe in psychics,” Eileen tried in a last ditch attempt to get Mildred to change her mind. The woman could be very protective at times, to the point that Eileen sometimes wished she was allowed to take more risks. “And Bela is a good lead. If I can get to Crowley through her, that is one step closer to Azazel.”

“Well, unfortunately for you I make the calls, and I’ve been watching the local police reports while you’ve been stationed in Santa Barbara. Psychic or not, the man has a talent. And we can’t have him looking into your background. You’ll have more chances to take him out, but if you get found out I’ll have to remove you from the case entirely.”

Eileen wasn’t happy that this particular part of her case had just been unwittingly stolen from her, but knew that protecting her identity was more important than her pride so she reluctantly agreed with Mildred and walked back into Vita’s so she could quit her job.

******************

“Charlie, I think I’ve got something,” Cas said, calling over his partner. “Apparently Lucca Vita had another son with a woman he was having an affair with over twenty years ago. Kevin Tran.”

“Huh,” Charlie said looking over his shoulder. Castiel stood up suddenly grabbing his coat and striding toward his car with Charlie walking quickly behind him.

“I didn’t interview him when we opened the case. We should get to him as soon as possible,” Cas said. Charlie agreed before sending Dean a text letting him know what Cas was doing on the case. Dean texted back a smiley face and Charlie rolled her eyes.

It wasn’t a long drive to Kevin Tran’s home and Charlie was glad to see some of Cas’ old intensity back in his eyes. Dean’s ability to pull the solution to a case out of his ass had slowly been working its way under Cas’ skin, which Charlie had realized a while ago. Still, Cas was a good cop, probably the best she’d ever met and it was nice to see him in action without Dean tripping over everything, funny as watching the psychic make a fool of himself and everyone around him could be.

“Kevin Tran?” Castiel asked when they got to Kevin’s front door.

“Yeah, that’s me,” the kid said, looking wary.

“I’m Castiel Novak, this is my partner Charlie Bradbury, we’re here from the Santa Barbara Police Department. We have a few questions for you,” Cas said. Kevin gulped, his eyes flicking between the two of them before opening his door a little wider to let them both in.

“Whatever it is, it’s probably Bela’s fault,” Kevin said without preamble. “She knows that I might win the court case and she’s already been sending people to try to threaten me into backing off.”

“We’re here to ask about the death of Arianna Vita,” Cas corrected. Kevin’s face twisted in confusion.

“Why do you want to ask me about that?” he asked. “We weren’t close. She hated my guts. Tried to cut me out of our dad’s will by doctoring the document. Would have succeeded too, if I didn’t have a copy.”

“Arianna was aware of your existence?” Cas asked.

“Yeah. We met a couple of times. Gio was alright to me, considering the circumstances, but Arianna couldn’t stand the sight of me. Slit my tires when she found out our dad was going to let me help run the business after I finished college.”

“I thought she left the restaurant to Bela Talbot?” Cas asked, checking his notes. Charlie nodded to him to let him know he had the name correct.

“Yes, she gave up her shares to her girlfriend instead of her own brother,” Kevin snorted. “Even if I am just half. The only thing I ever did to offend her is exist. And I’ve always wanted to run the place, ever since I was a kid. It was the only thing I had going for me you know? I’m smart, and I’m capable, and I like numbers and people. What she did wasn’t fair. I wasn’t planning on telling anyone that I was Lucca’s kid, you know to save his reputation, but she didn’t really leave me a choice.”

“Are you saying that the two women were involved?” Castiel asked. He had a general sense the two had been very close and did have Bela as a possible suspect, but nobody had indicated that the two might be romantically entangled.

“I’m pretty sure. They kept it quiet, but I showed up at Arianna’s door a couple of times asking her to let me be her partner before I took legal action and Bela was always there. I wouldn’t have thought much of it, but Gio told me that he was pretty sure they were together. He and Arianna got on okay, but apparently she’d been really distant since she met Bela.”

Castiel frowned. He thanked Kevin for speaking with him before leaving.

“So what do you think?” Charlie asked.

“I don’t think Kevin Tran had anything to do with Vita’s death. He didn’t really stand to gain much until he got her to release the real will for their father. Besides, he didn’t seem nervous after he realized that we were there to speak about Arianna.”

“So you’re thinking Bela.”

“Maybe. She had the most to gain from Arianna’s death. And she’s been trying to expand the restaurant, something Lucca Vita promised he would never do. She stands to make a lot of money from the place.”

“Should we go interview her?” Charlie asked.

“No, not yet. I want to get some more information together about her. Until then, let’s have someone keep an eye on her and report back to us any suspicious behavior. We have to tread lightly. Word is that she’s in association with some of Crowley’s people.”

“Well that’s not good,” Charlie said. “Doesn’t make her a murderer though.”

“No, not necessarily. It depends on how Bela felt about Arianna. Was she taking advantage or did she truly love the girl? Because forcing someone to swallow pills until they overdose isn’t a crime of passion. If it was murder, it was done carefully. It had to have been planned.”

Charlie noticed Castiel gipping the wheel tighter as he spoke.

“You’ll figure it out, Cas.”

Cas relaxed and nodded at his partner. He had to give Charlie credit: she was a lot better than he had first suspected she would be considering the amount of experience she had. He trusted her implicitly, and if she said things were going to work out, he believed her.

*****************

“Charlie,” Dean said, answering the phone. “You’re on speaker. Say hi Sam.”

“Hi.”

“I thought I’d call to keep you guys updated. Cas interviewed Kevin Tran and it turns out that Bela and Arianna-“

“Were in love?” Dean asked.

“Yeah. Or something like that.”

“And how’s Cassie doing?” Dean asked.

“Oh don’t worry about Cas. Cas is on fire. He’s gone into deep research mode. I’ll text you guys when he comes up for air.”

“Alright, see you Charlie,” Dean said back before nodding for Sam to hang up the phone. “You want me to drop you off at work?”

“You aren’t taking the car just because Novak keeps giving you tickets.”

“I think he does it because he wants me. What do you think?”

“I think you your ego is bigger than the Grand Canyon.”

It was right about then that they pulled up at Sam’s work. Sam snatched the keys before Dean could pull them out of the ignition and sprinted back into the building. Probably a wise decision. Dean took out the keys for his motorcycle and was about to leave when he got a call on his phone. He answered it wondering who was calling him.

“Dean Winchester speaking,” Dean said.

“Dean, get your ass to my house right now,” said John Winchester. Dean blinked in surprise before composing himself.

“I’m busy.”

“I don’t care.”

“Yeah, I’m going to hang up now,” Dean said. John rushed to get what he had to say in before Dean hung up.

“This case you’re poking around at? It’s over your head. I heard you were asking after Bela Talbot.”

“How did you know that?”

“I have friends in high places. Look, she’s mixed up with a lot of people that you don’t want attention from. Have your friends down at the station deal with this one. Don’t get involved.”

“Is that an order?” Dean asked, fiddling with his keys as he sat on his bike and waited for the call to be over.

“Sure. That’s an order. It’s one thing for you to be messing around with small cases, but these are serious people, Dean. You can’t handle them, and you’re going to get yourself killed.”

“You know, I get what you’re trying to do, but you have a really fucking funny way of showing you care about me, Dad,” Dean muttered into the phone before shutting the thing off. His phone started ringing again, but Dean figured he’d had enough of his dad for the time being and didn’t pick up. Instead, he continued complaining under his breath as he drove away. “Of course Sam gave you my number. And didn’t tell me. Because we get along so great now.”

Dean had been seeing John more, over the past few weeks. And to give his dad some credit, he had told Jody that Dean was telling the truth about being psychic, something that Dean never would have thought his dad would do. Still, Dean only ever really went to his house for help with cases and even then they almost always ended up having some kind of passive aggressive argument before Dean left. It was better than the whole lot of nothing they’d had before, but it wasn’t good by any means.

Perhaps it was Dean mulling over the past few weeks of contact with his father that made him miss the tell tale flash of someone taking a picture of him as he whizzed by on his bike.

**************

“Charlie, remember the records you sent me?”

Charlie choked, thinking that Cas might have realized she hadn’t used entirely legal methods to figure out that Bela Talbot had been born Abbie Redford a long time ago in England. According to the last known legal records about Abbie Redford, Bela had run away from home as a teen and never been seen since.

“Look, Cas, it wasn’t that bad, I just-“

“Charlie, I think I’ve found something,” Castiel interrupted, holding up a paper so that she could more easily see it. Cas had been using the string of identities that Charlie had been compiling to search for something they could use against her. The particular paper he held up had the identity Sarah McLeod.

“Yeah?” Charlie asked. “What about it?”

“Alistair’s been talking to try to get a plea deal so he gets life instead of a death sentence. He leaked a name.”

“Who?” Charlie asked.

“Fergus McLeod.”

**************

“Okay, Charlie, and you’re sure he’s coming?” Dean whispered into his phone. He and Sam were both wearing suits. Dean pulled out his.

“Did you have to be so freaking tall?” he sighed, doing his best to make it look like the suit fit him. “We’re about to meet with a chick and her criminal legal advisor and look like an idiot.”

“No, you just look like a kid wearing his big brother’s hand me downs at the junior prom,” Sam said back, smiling at Dean’s annoyed look at being referred to as the little brother. “What I don’t understand is how you managed to make it to the age of twenty six without ever buying a suit.”

“Don’t take out the fact that Jess and Sarah won’t message you anymore on me,” Dean countered, successfully distracting his brother.

“You keep stealing my phone and going through my messages I’ll change all your contact names again.”

“I’m just saying at some point you actually have to ask girls out. I’m all for equality but let’s face it, most women don’t make the first move. So when you also don’t make the first move, you miss your shot. And that is why your only long term relationship ever was with Becky Rosen.”

Sam shuddered.

“Don’t remind me.”

“Take chances, young grasshopper. Some girl will be deranged enough to overlook your flaws.”

“Thanks. Means a lot. Especially coming from a guy whose longest relationship was six weeks,” Sam snarked. “Can we focus on the actual case instead of my love life?”

“Sure thing,” Dean said easily. “Cassie and Charlie are on their way. Charlie told Novak that we managed to score a meeting with Bela and Crowley. They should interrupt us about ten minutes in.”

“Right. Just don’t get shot or something before then,” Sam said.

“We’re not going to get shot. Don’t be a drama queen,” Dean said ass he pulled the car into the restaurant’s front lot. He was greeted by Bela at the front and led back to an office near the back. Crowley sat there looking over thick packets of paper. He rose to greet the two men.

“Mr. Young and Mr. Rudd I take it? Bela has told me the two of you are interested in investing in Vita’s should the restaurant choose to expand. For today, I just want to go over what that would entail, what possible return you might have on the investment, and any other factors you have questions about.”

“That sounds great,” Sam said, shaking Crowley’s hand when offered. “I’ve actually got a few questions to start out with…”

Sam led the conversation, using all of the jargon he’d learned from business school to discuss finer points of the business with Crowley. Dean could feel his eyes glazing over and caught Bela smirking at him somewhat sympathetically. Obviously she could tell this wasn’t really Dean’s usual scene. Dean decided to take advantage of the time spent talking over useless business shit he could look around. Dean catalogued every object in the room and decided it was all useless. After that he figured out that Sam had had a tuna sandwich for lunch, Crowley used the dry cleaner on Fifth, and Bela was clearly trying to subtly distract Sam so that he wouldn’t pay as much attention to the sample contract Crowley had placed in front of him. She tapped her fingers, switching up the pattern so that it was impossible to just tune out. As her fingers moved, Dean watched and suddenly everything slid into place. Dean knew exactly what had happened to Arianna Vita.

It was at that moment that what looked like half the Santa Barbara Police Department came through the door. Castiel was in first quickly followed by Charlie. Jody and several other officers were after them.

“Crowley you are under arrest for the murder of Arianna Vita,” Novak said, cuffing Crowley when he tried to protest before going through his Miranda Rights.

“Bela Talbot you are under arrest for identity theft and credit card fraud,” Charlie said, cuffing the woman sat beside Crowley.

“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” Crowley said loudly, glaring at everyone around him. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

Bela was staring at Crowley, a kind of shock and disbelief on her face.

“What do you mean the murder of Arianna Vita?” she asked loudly. Castiel looked up at her briefly, but obviously wasn’t planning on answering her questions. Dean decided to intervene.

“C’mon Cassie. Clue me in,” he said. “I don’t want to have to read your thoughts. Could get embarrassing.”

“You can’t read my thoughts,” Novak said.

“See, I knew you were going to say that. You got three seconds Novak.”

“C’mon Cas,” Charlie encouraged. “We all want to hear what happened.”

“You know what happened. I don’t need to perform to do my job unlike some people.”

“Novak,” Mills said. “Go ahead. Tell us what happened. No performing, just facts.”

Officer Novak glared at Dean briefly before sighing.

“While first looking into the alleged suicide of Arianna Vita, I noticed her dress was torn. It was an anomaly I thought required further inquiry. Unfortunately, until now that was not possible. Fortunately fro our waiting, Kevin Tran recently came forward as the illegitimate son of Lucca Vita and is currently trying to claim his rightful shares from Vita’s restaurant. He also revealed to my partner and I that Bela Talbot and Arianna Vita were romantically involved. At first I suspected that Bela had purposefully been leading her on so that she could take her money.”

Bela looked down and away, a guilty look crossing her face.

“And perhaps that was the plan at first. But a funny thing happened. Bela fell in love with Arianna. A fact which Crowley didn’t take to very well.”

“Why would I care?” Crowley asked coolly. “We are business associates, her personal life is none of my concern.”

“Is that so, Fergus McLeod?” Novak asked. The bit of composure Crowley had managed to regain was again lost and he tried to lunge at the officer. Novak held him back easily. “married five years ago to Sarah McLeod, now known as Ms. Bela Talbot.”

“You have no proof,” Crowley insisted. “Absolutely no proof that-”

“Is it true?” Bela asked, cutting him off. “God, Crowley, please tell me you didn’t kill her.”

Crowley was quiet for a second before blowing up.

“You were supposed to love me! I let you do your little schemes, I let you do whatever you wanted and this is how you repaid me? Falling for the first slut that gives you the time of day?”

“Did it ever occur to you that I could love more than one person at a time?” Bela yelled back, her face going red. Then the loss seemed to hit her all over again. “Oh God, Ari, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “How could you do that to her? How could you do that to me?”

“Alright, take them away,” Jody said. Castiel and Charlie dragged the shouting couple behind them as they went back to their police car. Alfie stopped to chat with Sam and Dean, eyes wide.

“I can’t believe they got Crowley. He’s been untouchable for ages. We could never quite get enough evidence to link him to anything, and Castiel just goes and books him for murder,” Alfie said. Sam side eyed Dean as though expecting him to say something to take away from Novak’s victory, despite the fact it was Dean’s idea to let Novak have this case in the first place. Dean winked at him when Alfie wasn’t looking and then answered.

“Yeah. He’s good, I’ll give him that,” Dean said, watching as Charlie attempted to get her partner to high five her. Castiel stared at her hand and steadfastly refused which led to Charlie pouting slightly. He turned back and noticed Alfie looking down at his phone.

“Hey Dean, apparently there’s going to be a kind of celebration down at the station. Need a ride?” Alfie asked.

“Sure. I’d love to here about how the wedding planning is coming along. Do you think Hannah will be showing by then?” Dean asked. Alfie blushed, but his eyes were excited and it was obvious he was bursting to talk with someone about the fact he was going to be a dad. “Sam, you coming?” Dean asked.

“I have to catch up on work. I’ll pick your drunk ass up later,” Sam said, taking the keys to the Impala from Dean when Dean held them out. Dean followed Alfie back to his car with some of the other officers. It was a quick drive back to the station.

Jody made sure to tell the officers that only people who were off duty were allowed to drink, but the entire place was filled with a kind of ecstatic glow. Novak was surrounded by people congratulating him for having gotten Crowley arrested and actually getting him to admit he’d killed Arianna Vita. Dean made his way through the small crowd around him.

“Nice work, Novak,” he said. The officer nodded his head at Dean slightly, not saying anything else at first. Dean figured he’d probably rather be left with his friends and went to go find Charlie, but before he had turned around Novak spoke up.

“The other day, thanks for the aspirin. My head was killing me,” he said. Dean smirked and left to talk to Charlie, pleased that he’d gotten Novak to say something halfway nice to him again.

*****************

Perhaps the entire station didn’t freeze when Meg walked in, but that’s what it felt like to Cas. Like everyone around him stopped speaking, stopped moving, stopped breathing. She made her way to him with ease, graceful as she always had been and Castiel stared at her uncomprehending, unable to believe somehow that she could be there, in the station.

“Clarence,” Meg said. “We need to talk.”

Castiel didn’t even bother to speak to anyone around him, just commandeered an empty office, waited for Meg to walk in and then shut the door behind them.

“What are you doing here?” Castiel said, not turning to look at her. “This is where I work, Meg.”

“Jo wouldn’t let my calls go through. This is the only place I knew you’d be.”

Castiel sighed and finally looked Meg in the eye. He would rather have faced Meg at his apartment and wished his sister hadn’t kept her away for his sake. It hit him all over again how much he had missed her and Castiel could hear his voice cracking when he spoke again.

“What is this Meg?”

Meg hesitated before reaching into her bag and pulling out papers. She handed them to him silently. Castiel only had to glance at them to know what they were. Papers to finalize a divorce.

“I think it’s been long enough,” Meg said. “Don’t you?”

“If this is truly what you want,” Castiel sighed, taking a pen from the desk behind Meg, careful not to stand too close to her. He was about to sign it before Meg stopped him.

“Have a lawyer look at it or something,” she insisted. “Have Jo look it through. I’m not trying to steal from you.”

“I trust you,” Castiel said, signing before Meg could stop him again. “You know I’d do anything for you.”

Meg took the paper back. She wanted to leave. She wanted to run away and never look back, but if they were going to end it, and she knew they needed to, she owed Cas an explanation at least.

“It never worked. You and me.”

“Don’t say that.”

“We weren’t good for each other Clarence. I thought you were going to save me, and that fucked me up okay? I’m better now, then I was before, I’ve been on the right side of tracks recently, but I had to do that myself. I can’t rely on you to be my Jiminy Cricket.”

“You could have told me. We could have worked it out. We were together fourteen years, Meg. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Did you ever even want to be with me?”

“It was never a problem of wanting to be with you. Don’t make it about that, that was never the fucking problem. Do you remember what I remember? Because I remember you getting more and more miserable as I picked you apart, and I’m not going to stick around and cause you more pain.”

“We could have made it work. We can still-“

“Cas, just stop,” Meg said. “For the love of God, just stop. It’s over. Look at me, and tell me if I’m lying.”

Castiel searched Meg’s eyes and swallowed hard. It was odd to think just five minutes ago was the best he had felt in ages. The high of finally getting a big case under his belt had faded so quickly, he almost wondered if Meg wasn’t right. If they hadn’t spent their entire lives making the other unhappy.

“So this is it, then,” he said hollowly.

“It’s better this way,” Meg said. “I know you like to hold on to things, but trust me, I am one person you want to let go.”

Castiel shook his head but didn’t say anything. Meg sighed and walked forward, pressing a soft lingering kiss to his cheek. Castiel could feel burning at the back of his eyes, but stubbornly refused to let a tear fall.

“See you around,” she said, pausing at the door before slinking off. Cas sat back on his the desk and felt his shoulders slump. He sighed, wishing he could spend just a little while longer looking at Meg’s face.

“No you won’t,” he answered, knowing that Meg was already long gone.

***************

It had been almost half an hour since Novak had left with the woman that Dean recognized from one of the photos he’d seen on Novak’s desk. The look on his face made Dean fairly confident that this was in fact Meg, Novak’s wife that had a fair amount of gossip spread about her among the officers that Dean had been privy to by eavesdropping and listening to Alfie when he was feeling chatty. The celebration was still going strong and even though there had been some whispers when Meg had first showed up, they had long since died down. Dean was the only one who noticed Meg slink out a side door fifteen minutes prior. Nobody else seemed like they were going to be checking Novak, Charlie likely because she had been too busy hanging onto every word Chief Mills was saying, her small crush never having gone entirely away despite the knowledge that Jody was married and had kids. Charlie refused to admit to Dean that she had a crush on the chief, but he was pretty sure anyone with eyes could tell.

In any case, since nobody else seemed to be keen to track Novak down, Dean figured the job fell to him. He slipped his way out of a conversation with Missouri about the uses of conduits in channeling spirits (which he was so going to do with Sam because his brother would be pissed off beyond belief) so that he could make his way to the empty office at the end of the hall, where Dean had seen Meg walk out of.

When he walked in, Novak was just sitting on the desk, his head bowed and his shoulders dragged down as though by some enormous invisible weight.

“You know, you should probably head back. The party is for you,” Dean said. Novak twitched, straightening up immediately at the sound of Dean’s voice.

“Can you go?” he asked quietly.

“C’mon Novak, you won today. Struck a hit for police officers everywhere. Took me down a notch. Which I know you were thinking, because I can read minds.”

“The love of my life just told me that there is and never will be hope for the two of us, and quite frankly you are the last person on Earth I want to talk to at the moment. Can. You. Go?”

Well, the woman was definitely Meg.

“That sucks, Cas,” Dean said carefully. “If you want I can go and get Sam. Don’t ever tell him I said this, but he’s a good shoulder to cry on. Not that I cry.”

“Dean-“

“I think it’s the eyes. If you could bottle up genuine sympathy and sappy emotions and condense them into their purest form, then you’ve got Sam when he wants to help people. It’s actually sickening,” Dean interrupted. “Plus the girly hairdo. Makes him look like a hippy motivational speaker. I just generally feel better about myself after having him give me thoughtful advice that I don’t follow.”

A sharp bark of laughter forced it’s way out of Novak. Dean leaned against the wall across from him, still not leaving.

“I don’t think you listen to a word anybody says,” Novak replied. “So it doesn’t surprise me that your brother would be any different.”

“Oh, I listen. I just am a bit more selective where the actual following of directions and advice is concerned.”

“I’ve noticed.”

Sudden silence descended. Novak cleared his throat.

“So, Winchester. What have you ever needed a shoulder to cry on about?”

“Well Firefly getting canceled was hard on all of us,” Dean said. Novak rolled his eyes and looked down again. “Oh, and Sam was way more put together than me when our parents split up. I think it was because he was excited about getting two Christmases.”

The joke fell flat. Dean watched as Novak twisted his hands, the rest of his body statue still.

“Are they all still out there?” Novak asked at last. Dean nodded and waited for Novak to clear out of the room before following him back to the ruckus that was people excitedly talking about what might be the arrest of the decade. When someone noticed Novak was back they poured everyone they could reach who wasn’t on duty a drink, and the group toasted Novak. Dean wasn’t sure whether or not he imagined it, but some of the light seemed to go back on behind the officer’s eyes.

*************

Jo Harvelle sat on her car waiting for Cas to come out. She didn’t particularly want to be there, but it wasn’t like she was going to complain since for the first time in a long time her brother wasn’t moping around sadly about Meg. She’d never known what Cas saw in her. Then again, Meg had teased Jo mercilessly as a child, and even though Cas would yell at anyone else that so much as looked at Jo funny, he always took Meg’s side when Jo tried to tell him about how she was always at Jo’s throat. They had eventually just established a rule that the two of them didn’t talk about Meg, ever. Even when Jo had been at the little wedding ceremony that Cas and Meg had pulled one weekend while they were both in college, she hadn’t said a word to Meg the whole time, had just told Cas how her classes were going and begged him to come home and visit more often. Jo adored Cas, and she hated that Meg had been the one thing that stood between them their whole lives. In her opinion, Meg deciding to leave Cas was the best decision she ever made. Maybe now her brother could find someone that actually made him happy.

While Jo was musing, the low rumble of another car pulling up in the police parking lot caught her attention. A tall man about her age got out of the car and sat on the front like Jo was doing, staring at his phone.

“You waiting to pick someone up too?” she asked. The man started and then looked over at her and smiled.

“Yeah. My brother left his motorcycle back at his place. Plus, I doubt that he’ll be sober enough to drive if ‘celebrating’ means what I think it means,” the man said.

“Yeah no kidding,” Jo said with a laugh. “Name’s Jo Harvelle,” she said holding out a hand for the man to shake.

“Sam,” he said in reply, taking her hand and shaking it for a moment. “Nice view to wait with though at least,” he said, looking up at the sky. Jo nodded her agreement. “You heard about Pluto?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“It’s messed up, right?”

Jo gave Sam a funny look and then started cracking up.

“I guess,” she said when she stopped laughing. It was right about then that she saw her brother walking out of the police station with his phone in his hand. He looked up at her.

“I think one message would’ve been sufficient,” Cas said to Jo, not slurring which was a good sign. There was someone else right behind him who waved at Sam. Jo turned to look at him and saw a look of surprise spread across his face.

“You’re Novak’s sister?” he asked. “But you’re last name is different.”

“He’s adopted,” she said back with a shrug. She squinted at the guy who was walking behind Cas. He looked really familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him.

“Nice to meet you,” the man said. The voice clicked it. It was the guy who’d brought Cas back from the bar. She narrowed her eyes in suspicion at him.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Dean Winchester. I’m sure Novak has probably said something about how terrible a person I am.”

Well, he had, Jo thought to herself.

“I could’ve sworn I’d seen you before,” she said. Dean’s eyes flicked to Novak.

“I’d remember a face like yours,” he said. Cas looked between the two of them and shrugged.

“Can we leave now?” he asked his sister. She nodded and and the pair left without another word exchanged. Dean had a feeling that Jo was going to tell Cas about how Dean had helped him home from the bar that night. Whatever, Novak could make of it what he would. Right now Dean had bigger fish to fry.

“So, were you just flirting with Novak’s little sister?” Dean asked Sam.

“What? No, I wasn’t..” Sam said, leaping off the car and into the driver’s seat.

“I bet you used your Pluto line and everything.”

“You’re the one who told me to start taking chances,” Sam muttered, starting the car and backing out of the parking space.

“Novak’s going to shoot you,” Dean pointed out.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Hey when you die, can I have your computer?”

“You have a job now, buy your own damn computer.”

“You won’t need it anymore.”

“Shut up, Dean.”

*************

Crowley hated prison. He hated the clothes he was made to wear, he hated the indignity of the place, he hated the lack of palatable food, and he hated knowing that if he hadn’t let himself fall for that bitch Bela all this years ago he wouldn’t be here right now.

But most of all he hated Castiel Novak.

The officer wasn’t going to get away with this unscathed, Crowley would make sure of that.

So when it came time to make a phone call, Crowley knew just who he was going to be contacting.

“Crowley,” came the familiar chilling voice, somehow threatening even through the tinny receiver that Crowley was being forced to use. “I heard you got put away. Calling for a rescue mission?”

“Well, that’s one thing. I want to take a contract out. Castiel Novak, he works for the SBPD.”

The man on the other side of the phone looked down at one of the many picture he had of Dean Winchester. He added it to the wall he had been amassing, one of many he had built in his lifetime. The most recent photograph had the blue eyed officer walking slightly in front of the alleged psychic. Azazel grinned.

“I think that can be arranged.”


	3. Part 3: Time for a Wedding

Jo Harvelle was not a trusting person. Nor was she one to cower under the covers when she heard something that shouldn’t be there at night. Seeing as how she knew for a fact Castiel was still snoring loudly in the room next to hers, the only reason she could think of that she had heard the sound of their refrigerator opening was that someone had broken in.

Jo reached out for her old lacrosse stick, holding onto it tightly until she could get to her brother’s gun. When she was just about to make a run for it she recognized the silhouette standing in front of her refrigerator.

“I am going to shoot you one of these days, Balthazar.”

“Well, you haven’t yet, darling, so I think I’ll keep taking my chances. Is our dear Cassie awake, as well?” Balthazar asked, helping himself to the last strawberry yogurt in the fridge. If it were anyone else, Jo might just shoot him on principle for that alone, but after he had met Cas in college, he had become almost like the fun uncle that Jo had never had. And never really wanted but that was besides the point.

“It’s two in the morning.”

“When did you two grow up and become so boring?”

“Is that who I think it is?” came a sleep altered voice. Castiel had managed to make himself alert enough to stumble into the kitchen. Jo figured she should have known nobody really dangerous had gotten in their apartment, because Cas seemed to have an instinct for that kind of thing and would have been up and at ‘em quick as you please.

“Cassie, mon petit ange, it’s been too long,” Balthazar said, hugging Castiel before the annoyed officer pushed him away, smiling slightly.

“How was France?”

“Wonderful, you should go someday if you ever stop working yourself to death. Jo, shouldn’t your brother enjoy his life? Instead of chasing down grisly murders and horrible accidents?”

“Don’t get me involved. I have to live with the bastard,” Jo said. Since she was already up, Jo decided to also grab a yogurt from the fridge. She sighed when she saw only cherry left and grabbed two, passing one to Cas who caught it without looking away from his friend.

“I happen to like my job. It gives me a sense of purpose.”

“But does it give you a good night’s sleep?”

“Currently you’re the only thing standing in the way of a good night’s sleep.”

“Touché,” Balthazar said, throwing away the empty yogurt container. “Well, I haven’t come without cause. My flight just landed and I simply had to share the news.”

“You’ve managed to go another whole year without contracting any STDs?” Jo guessed.

“I’ll have you know I am very thoughtful when it comes to protection. But no, that is not the news.”

Castiel knew that Balthazar would just drag out a guessing game all night if he wasn’t cut short. This being the case, he quickly asked what the news was before Jo could make more sarcastic comments. It sometimes worried Castiel that those closest to him seemed to all have some kind of need to out-snark everyone else in the room. Perhaps it said something about his character.

“I’m getting married.”

“What?” Castiel asked, stunned. Those were three words that Cas had been sure would never pass from Balthazar’s lips. And yet, it was obvious that his friend wasn’t joking.

“I know, it’s very sudden. But when you know something, best not to let time waste.”

“Who are you marrying? Do I know them?” Castiel asked.

“Oh no, I met Pamela in Paris two weeks ago. She does live in Santa Barbara, though.”

“Two weeks? Balthazar, are you really thinking this through?”

“Don’t worry, Cassie. She’s amazing. Witty, sexy, and very into me.”

“Rich, too I suppose,” Castiel said in an undertone. Balthazar winked.

“Oh, Cas, you know if I really needed money I would mooch off of you first.”

Jo snorted. Castiel tried not to let his lips twitch in amusement.

“Yes, I do know that. But are you absolutely sure that you want to marry a woman that you met two weeks ago?”

“Yes I am. Thanks for checking. In any case, I didn’t come here for your inevitable well meaning but pointless speech about responsibility and making good choices. I came here because I need a best man.”

“And you want me to do that?” Cas asked. He was… rather touched. Sure, Balthazar had been ‘best man’ in a loose sense of the word back when he and Meg had gotten married when the three of them had been juniors in college, but Balthazar often traveled and he was never without friends. It had occurred to Castiel more than once that he might not always occupy the place of Balthazar’s best friend.

“Who else? Unfortunately, you don’t get to do much more than write a speech. Pamela’s family is planning the whole thing out. Still, it’s the thought that counts, I say.”

“Am I invited?” Jo asked.

“Of course,” Balthazar scoffed. “And you’re my second choice for the position too, when Cassie says no on principle.”

“Yes,” Castiel said, exasperated at his friend’s teasing.

“What was that?” Balthazar asked, a smirk on his face.

“Yes I’ll be your best man.”

“Excellent. Now, is there any more strawberry yogurt?”

*************************THIRTEEN YEARS EARLIER************************

Dean snuck out of the house phone book in hand and made his way to the nearest payphone. Sam thought he was so funny, but Dean would show him. Before entering in the number, Dean practiced the voice he was going to use a couple of times until he got it just right.

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is Gina. I’m a member of pregnant women against drunk driving and I’d like ask you a few questions as part of our survey.”

“Um, okay?” asked the confused voice on the other side of the line. Dean lifted up the cassette recorder he had taken from his dad’s office and pressed the record button.

“Do you believe I’m pregnant?”

“Uh, yes?”

“Thank you, that’s all I needed sir. Have a nice day.”

Sam was so going to lose this round of secret agent. Dean skipped back to where they’d arranged to rendezvous and waited for a while until a sulking Sam came wandering back.

“Hi Sam.”

“I hate you.”

“You know the rules. You have to convince someone you’re who you say you are.”

“And you know I can’t do a British accent!”

“You started the game by saying I had to convince a stranger I was pregnant! I’m thirteen for Christ’s sake, nobody’s going to buy that.”

Sam giggled a little at that before remembering he was pissed off at Dean for cheating at their game. He knew that Sam couldn’t do accents. How was he supposed to have convinced anybody that he had just moved to Santa Barbara from England?

“I guess we both lose then.”

“Nope. Read it and weep,” Dean said, playing the tape over. Sam stared at him wide eyed before he figured out what Dean must have done.

“You cheated!”

“Phone calls aren’t against the-“ Dean started before Sam tackled him to the ground. “Mom! Mom, Sam’s attacking me!”

“What the hell are you two doing?” asked their dad, running from inside the house. Dean and Sam stopped grappling immediately.

“Sam started it.”

“That’s not true. Dean and I were playing secret agents and Dean cheated.”

“Oh, you were playing secret agents. How exactly were you playing secret agents?”

Sam started going on about how Dean and him were supposed to convince strangers they were whatever strange thing the other had come up with and Dean had made him do an accent, which apparently was totally unfair. Dean knew exactly what was coming next when he saw the familiar gleam in his dad’s eyes.

“Okay, kiddos. I’m going to give you a little lesson when it comes to going undercover. First of all, you don’t stand out. You don’t try to convince people you are something. Going out of your way to talk to people is suspicious, especially important people. You fit in, you listen, and you keep your head down. If you pay attention, people’s secrets will come out easier than you think.”

“Yes, sir,” Dean and Sam said. John looked at them both and considered something for a second.

“There is a new cashier at the grocery store who is keeping something from someone important in his life. Whoever figures out what he’s hiding first gets ice cream after dinner.”

“But that’s not fair! Dean can do his thing,” Sam said, waving his hands around dramatically to indicate the skills John had been teaching Dean for as long as they both could remember. Sam usually refused to participate out of pure stubbornness.

“Rules are rules, Sammy.”

“No, I’ll give Sam a hint,” John conceded, pulling Sam aside to tell him something. Afterwards, Sam had a confident grin on his face.

“Go, I’ll time you,” John said, pressing buttons on his watch. Sam started running as fast as he could. It took a second for Dean to realize Sam was starting before he took off after his little brother.

********************PRESENT DAY**********************

“What do you mean we don’t have any new cases?” Dean said, spinning around in his chair to vent his frustration.

“I mean we don’t have any new cases. I am speaking English, Dean.”

“C’mon, we got a bunch of private cases our first month-“

“You solved them just by looking over the information they gave. They probably thought you were making stuff up, because in case you weren’t aware, psychics aren’t actually real. And you know what? I hate to tell you this Dean, but nobody likes hearing that their spouse is cheating on them. They go to detectives to be sure their partners aren’t cheating. They almost never actually want the truth. So I’m guessing you’re probably getting a bad rap from old clients.”

“Oh yeah, like who?”

“Uh, well, this guy says you were rude and accused him of being the one who was cheating on his wife and he was projecting his own unfaithful actions on her,” said Sam looking through some kind of review on his laptop.

“He was.”

“That’s not the point,” Sam said, putting down his laptop. “If you actually want to do this, you have to think like a business man-“

“I get it. You college, me dumb.”

“Dean, I didn’t fucking say that if you would just listen-“

There was a loud knock at the door. Dean smiled and shot out of the chair. Finally.

“Hello, this is Psych. I’m Dean Winchester, psychic detective, how can I help you?” he asked. The woman at the door lifted up a spray can and pressed down on the sprayer and the world instantly went dark.

*******************

“Sammy?” asked a concerned voice. Dean. That was definitely Dean. Sam opened his eyes and found that he and Dean were sitting in a room that was mirrors on all four sides. “Oh thank god. What the hell is going on here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe we got abducted by aliens.”

“Maybe we got abducted by some of Crowley’s people and they’re going to kill us.”

“The glass is always half full with you, isn’t it?”

Both brothers jumped when a door they hadn’t been able to see opened and a woman walked in, wearing a kind smile and experienced eyes.

“I’m sorry for the dramatics, but we needed to be discreet.”

“So you took us to a CostCo basement?” Dean asked. “Great villain lair. One should always aspire to be the aliens from Watchmen.”

“Do you mean The Watch?” Sam asked Dean.

“The what?”

“The Watch.”

“The what?”

Sam was not amused.

The woman cleared her throat and both brothers remembered they were currently in a probably very dangerous situation.

“Wow, that’s good work on the location, Dean. Eileen doesn’t think you’re actually psychic, but I wouldn’t be too sure if I was her. The world’s full of strange things. My name is Mildred, and you boys have nothing to worry about. We’re CIA, and I promise you all of this is just because we’re protective of our field agents.”

“So you had to kidnap us?” Dean asked.

“Borrow. You’re free to leave at any time. You don’t even have to listen to my offer if you don’t want to. But I think you might want to.”

Sam started to say then they were going to leave, but Dean cut him off.

“Let me talk to my brother for a moment,” Dean said with a quick grin to Mildred. “Dude. CIA.”

“How do we even know they’re telling the truth?”

“I know.”

“How?”

“I just know. Look Sammy, this is like our childhood dream come true. We can’t miss this. Besides, we don’t have any other cases lined up. Jody hasn’t called in ages. Please, Sam.”

“Okay, fine,” Sam said, caving too quickly for Dean not to be sure he had wanted to be involved since he heard CIA. Dean pumped a fist in the air before noticing that Mildred was watching him with an amused smile. He gave a small wave and then turned back to Sam. “But you’re going to blow our cover in ten seconds flat.”

“No I won’t. Hey Mildred!” Dean said, walking back to the other side of the mirrored room. “We’ll do it. What’s the case?”

The same door that had opened before opened again and a familiar looking woman walked through.

“Marlene?” Sam asked confused. “You work for these guys?”

“Course she does,” Dean said. Sam knew Dean was full of shit and had had no idea that Marlene was undercover either, but he didn’t call him out on it, since not knowing would definitely put a dent in his psychic cover story.

“Eileen,” was all the woman whose name was apparently Eileen said.

“You’re going to be working with her on a very important case. There’s an upcoming wedding where a very expensive ring is going to be used. Intelligence agents unveiled a plan to steal the ring earlier this week.”

“Oh,” Dean said, somewhat disappointed. “Is that it?”

“Slow down, honey,” Mildred said with a smile, before her face grew serious again. “We don’t care so much about the ring as who it’s being stolen for.”

“Who is…?” Sam asked. Eileen read the words from his lips and answered him.

“He goes by Azazel. He’s uncatchable. The only description we’ve ever gotten about him is that he has yellow eyes, though we haven’t found any DNA hits from crime scenes that match collected DNA in any national database, so whatever disease he has is likely being treated abroad or by doctors willing to be bribed. He is constantly moving and unpredictable in his patterns. But this time we know he’s going to pick up the ring himself.”

Now that sounded a lot more interesting. Mildred took over from Eileen from there.

“Since we don’t really know what he looks like, we figured a psychic would be great for our case.”

Eileen didn’t say anything, but her skeptical silence made it clear that ‘we’ referred much more to Mildred than herself. Dean didn’t really care much, though, since he was going to get to go undercover to catch some kind of crime lord. He felt like a mix between James Bond and Elliot Ness.

“Count us in,” said Dean.

***************

“Look, Mary, I know you’re busy, but I need you to come down here.”

“I’m not going to just drop my responsibilities and fly out at the drop of a hat.”

“Your son is playing with fire, and he won’t listen to a word I say. Kate’s been telling me that apparently a woman named Mildred from her department has hired him for-“

“You know, maybe Dean would listen to you if you didn’t call him my son whenever he did something you don’t like,” Mary interrupted.

“We’re not having this conversation. I think Dean might be getting himself and Sam into trouble. I guess I just thought you’d care.”

Mary sighed heavily, and pulled out her computer, looking to see if there was anyway she could rearrange her current commitments.

“I’ll come. But don’t you dare think it’s for you.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” John said resignedly. There must have been problems all along, when they were married, God knew that Mary liked to spout off reasons at him, but he only really ever remembered the end being bad. Before that, he’d been so in love whatever issues they’d had had hardly seemed to matter. When Mary had finally walked out on him, moved as far away as she could get, that’s when everything had come tumbling down. It still tortured him sometimes to think there could have been some way he could have fixed it. That had been when Dean had stopped looking up to him, when Dean had started sullenly ignoring everything John said and gotten himself into all kinds of trouble. Every bit of bad John could see in his life had started when Mary had left him, and despite his anger with her and the fact he was seeing Kate now, he couldn’t help the tiny hope inside him that if Mary came back, everything might be a little bit better.

*****************

“You want time off?” Jody asked, her voice full of suspicion. Castiel blinked. “Is something wrong Novak?”

“Why would something be wrong?”

“You haven’t taken a vacation in three years.”

“My friend is getting married. He asked that I take some time off to spend with him. I don’t have any current cases that can’t wait for a week, and I thought I would respect his wishes.”

“I’m not saying you can’t take time off. Please, take more, God knows you’ve earned it. I just don’t want you coming back and saying you’ve got cancer or something. Not without a head’s up at least,” Jody said. Castiel tilted his head slightly in confusion.

“I don’t have cancer. Trust me, if I did, Charlie would have already alerted the entire station. Likely, she would first come and told you.”

That was probably true actually.

“Well, have a nice time at the wedding then. I’ll expect you back next Monday. I’ll have Charlie partner up with Alfie for a while while you’re gone.”

“Heaven help anyone they try to arrest,” Castiel said before leaving. Jody let out a surprised smile before getting back to her work.

Charlie of course had already gone over to Alfie. Cas could tell she was thrilled to be the one in charge, though he didn’t know how she’d convinced Alfie that that was the case. Then again, Charlie could be persuasive when she desired, a fact that had more than once led to Castiel taking her to her favorite video game store while they were supposed to be on their route.

“Have fun Charlie,” Castiel said when he passed her. She flashed him a grin before continuing to explain to Alfie why exactly it was so important to note that Tara being killed off was one of TV’s greatest tragedies. Alfie had his same friendly smile, and Castiel was certain that if the two stayed out of trouble they would probably be fine without him there.

But maybe he should check in every once in a while. Just in case.

******************

Meeting Pamela for the first time was more awkward than had been expected.

Castiel and Jo had waited at a cafe for Balthazar to bring his fiancé to meet them. When she had walked in, the first thing the two siblings noticed was the cane and sunglasses she wore. The two exchanged glances.

“This is Pamela,” Balthazar said proudly. Jo hurriedly stood up to shake her hand and Castiel followed suit.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Jo said, shaking the offered hand. Castiel repeated a similar sentiment when he likewise shook Pamela’s hand.

“Good to meet you two, considering Balthazar won’t shut up about the two of you,” Pamela said. “Can I ask a question?”

“Sure,” Jo said.

“Can I touch your faces? It helps me to visualize what people might look like.”

Both Jo and Castiel agreed, which Balthazar looked relieved about. Pamela touched Jo’s face first and then Cas’. After she had touched Cas’ face, Cas turned around to sit and jumped about a foot in the air when she smacked his ass. Balthazar burst out laughing.

“Sorry,” Pamela said, holding back her own laughter. “I can’t see anything, I swear.”

“Oh God, she’s perfect for him,” Jo whispered to Cas after she had stopped snickering. “You won’t even get to be condescending and rude to Balthazar about getting married too soon. He actually might have found the perfect person for him.”

“I’m not condescending,” Castiel whispered back, his cheeks red with embarrassment.

“Sure.”

“I’m not.”

“Well, if you two are going to stop bickering, I think my fiancé and I would like to eat,” Balthazar said.

Pamela and Balthazar were both spitfires, and liked to be in control of the conversation. Castiel liked Pamela more than he had thought he would, but he could hardly get a word in edgewise and felt more like a spectator than a participant in their conversations. Jo managed to hold her own out of pure stubbornness, but Pamela and Balthazar seemed to only have eyes for each other (or ears as the case may be).

“Aren’t you guys worried nobody’s going to show up?” Jo asked. “I mean, a week is not long enough to plan a wedding.”

“People will show up,” Pamela said. “I just figured if we were going to get married, do it now before my family manages to turn the whole thing into an over-planned shit storm. Trust me, a week is not an issue for them. And my dad is on his third marriage, so he can’t exactly tell me I’m rushing this.”

“We’ll take your word for it,” Cas said. Pamela finally turned her attention to him.

“That’s sweet of you. I’m sure you’re dying inside to give me the ‘don’t fuck with my friend’ speech, based on what ‘Zar here has told me about you,” Pamela said. “Promise to try to not to. Probably. Unless he deserves it.”

“He likely will,” Castiel said, salting his food and eating. The rest of the meal went pleasantly enough and some of Castiel’s more immediate fears were set at ease. He still did not like that Balthazar was getting married so quickly, and feared that Pamela would damage him in ways he didn’t realize. Balthazar was simply not the type to settle down, and if he was willing to do so, Castiel could only assume it was because he really cared for her. Before the couple left, Castiel pulled Balthazar aside.

“You’re sure about this?”

“Yes.”

Castiel hugged Balthazar, who was surprised but pleased at the gesture. Castiel was not one to show affection lightly, and often Balthazar initiated any kind of contact between them.

“I hope she’s good to you.”

“Well, if I get divorced it’s not the end of the world. One of the best men I know has been divorced,” Castiel rolled his eyes. “By which I mean Robert Downey Jr., of course. Who did you think I was talking about?”

Cas cleared his throat.

“Will Meg… is Meg going to be there?” Balthazar looked slightly away from Cas to answer.

“C’mon Cassie. I couldn’t not invite her.”

“No, I know. I’m not asking you to. I just… want to be prepared.”

“Of course. Hang in there,” Balthazar said, squeezing Castiel’s shoulder in reassurance. “Pamela and I have to go pick out a cake, but I’ll be back at yours later. Ciao.”

After the couple had left, Jo and Castiel walked back to their apartment. Jo decided to use the time to give detailed instructions on how exactly one went about throwing a bachelor party and why it was very important that Cas set one up. Castiel spent the walk trying to convince his little sister that Balthazar would likely want to plan his own bachelor party and that Castiel’s version would doubtless have too little nudity to satisfy his friend, a point which Jo conceded.

*****************

Today was the day. Dean felt restless in his skin and couldn’t help the wide grin that split his face at odd intervals. Sam made fun of him for it but Dean could tell he was excited too. Eileen seemed to have warmed to them both over the week she had spent training them as best she could before the wedding, and didn’t bother to reprimand them for being jumpy and excited.

As the three of them exited their vehicle and made their way to the wedding, Eileen reminded them that they had other people responsible for preventing the ring from being stolen. Their job was only to determine whether Azazel was in attendance, if he was, to report the sighting to her so that she could take him out. Dean and Sam, as civilians, were not allowed to have guns or shoot people, something which Dean was actually a little glad about but also resented because he was a damn good shot. Not that he’d used a gun in years, since he had gone to live with his mother.

The two brothers had to wear suits again, but this time Dean’s actually fit. And fit well too, something that when Dean had commented on Eileen had stifled laughter and signed something to Mildred who had signed back with a twinkle in her eyes. Dean got the feeling that the joke was on him and looked to Sam who was clearly trying to decipher which signs they were using. His brother had been studying a book at night to try to relearn what he knew from a class he had taken in college and sometimes when they took breaks in training, Sam would show Eileen what he had learned and she would correct anything he wasn’t doing quite right and the two would have rudimentary conversations. Whenever important information needed to be exchanged, though, Eileen would just speak out loud and read Sam or Dean’s lips.

Eileen was a killer fighter, a fact which had been drilled into Dean and Sam more than a few times. Neither were anywhere near defenseless, but they hadn’t actually trained how to incapacitate people since they were kids, and their respective choices had left them in shape, but not exactly super spy ready. Then again, they were just supposed to ‘observe and report’.

Eileen had gotten in by being given a job as help for the caterer but Dean and Sam were smuggled into the party as guests so that they had more flexibility in where they could go and who they could speak to. Dean scanned the crowd and did his best to weed out unimportant information. Sam seemed to get distracted by a pretty brunette who sat next to him during the ceremony, and Dean did his best to ignore his little brother so that he could focus on the mission without making fun of Sam. Dean’s eyes roved the crowd, and he somehow knew that whoever he was looking for was there. It was like something was stuck on the tip of his tongue, some thought that was just below the surface, asking for release.

The ceremony was not long, though it was notable for an amusing exchanging of vows and a kiss passionate enough to make a significant amount of the attendees uncomfortable. Since the ring had made it onto the groom’s finger, Dean figured that Eileen’s friends had been successful in preventing it being stolen, so that was one less thing to think about. Dean had not been looking toward the wedding party at first because he was certain that Azazel would not be among their numbers, since they were so prominent and on display. However, when he looked up at the front of the room and saw Novak standing next to the groom, Dean kind of wished he’d paid attention earlier. He elbowed Sam in the side.

“Novak’s here,” Dean hissed.

“Shit. What if he notices us?”

“Hell, if I know. Maybe he’ll think we were invited.”

“Yeah, right. Just make sure he doesn’t see you Dean.”

Dean was pretty sure no one in the wedding party was involved so it shouldn’t be hard to keep Novak at a distance.

***************

After the ceremony was over, Castiel, Balthazar, Pamela, and her bridesmaid and family were crowded in by well wishers. Castiel did his best to turn off his natural instinct to scan the crowd for possible threats or weapons and instead focus on if anyone he actually knew came up.

Jo, Ellen, and Bobby managed to make it through eventually and Jo threw her arms around Balthazar, who instantly picked her up, much to the amusement of the surrounding crowd. Pamela asked what was funny and Balthazar whispered in her ear something that made Pamela break out into a fit of laughter.

“Castiel, what is wrong with your tie?” Ellen muttered, fixing it for him instantly. He hadn’t gotten a chance to see his parents before the wedding began, so now he was going to get the old lecture about his appearance. “I swear, I don’t know who’s worse, you or Jo.”

“Dad probably,” Cas said.

“I think I clean up nice, thank you very much,” Bobby said. “Anyways, we have to wish that British idjit you like a happy life. Or something.”

After that it was a blur of pictures and faces and people Castiel would likely never see again. It was a relief when the reception started and Cas finally had a moment to himself.

Of course it was right about then that Dean managed to get himself caught out by the father of the bride, who, after observing Dean eating the provided finger food by putting five shrimp rolls in his mouth to gross out his brother, had decided to check the guest list to see if he could find a “Dean Smith”. Having satisfied himself that the young man had no right to be there, he was going to have him escorted out by security.

“Honestly, I’m supposed to be here,” Dean said when confronted, looking around trying to find someone to help him out. Eileen was nowhere to be seen, and Sam was busy blending in by chatting with the same brunette he’d spent the wedding ogling and Dean wasn’t going to call attention to him in case the douchebag in front of him decided to kick him out too. Right before the man was about to call security, Dean noticed Novak standing off by himself and Dean called out to him without thinking.

“Novak!”

Castiel looked toward the voice startled. Then his expression clouded over and he strode over, clearly about to bitch Dean out, but Dean cut him off and hoped against hope that Novak would cover for him. It was a long shot, but it was better than nothing.

“I came here with him. That’s why I’m not on your list,” Dean said when Novak was close enough to hear. If anything, his expression was even more thunderous, but Dean was hopeful that since he didn’t immediately deny that Dean was here with him he had a shot of getting out of this.

“Is that true?” the man asked Castiel. Novak considered Dean for a moment before turning to the man and nodding. “Well, if you were going to invite someone, you should have just told us. You never know what sort of crazy people might show up when they hear a Barnes is having a wedding. Really, if your friend Balthazar had any idea the kind of life he’s getting into-“

“Excuse me,” Castiel interrupted. “I need to speak with Dean for a moment.”

“Oh, I’m sure it can wait,” Dean said as Novak started dragging him toward the back of the room. Damn, the cop was strong. “Novak, I don’t think you really need to grip my arm that tight. I’m starting to lose circulation.”

Novak didn’t say a word until he had pushed Dean into a room and shut the door behind him.

“Why are you here, Winchester?”

“You know, everyone out there probably just assumes that you dragged me off to a closet so we could make out.”

“This isn’t funny. You have a tendency to make a mess wherever you go, and you are not going to do that at my best friend’s wedding. So tell me why you’re here.”

“Look, Novak, I can’t okay? The, uh, spirits are being very vague but I sense that someone’s going to be here and I really need to see who it is. Which I can’t do from the closet, so if you’d just let me-“

Dean tried to push past Novak but just got shoved back hard into the wall. Novak crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes, staring Dean down, waiting for an answer.

“Okay fine. The CIA hired me to figure out what some asshole looks like so they can take him down. He was supposed to be here because some of his goons were trying to steal your buddy’s ring. Now can I get back to that?”

“And I thought you couldn’t make a claim more ridiculous than being a psychic,” Novak muttered. “I won’t turn you in, for the sake of keeping the SBPD out of the papers at least, but I expect you to leave.”

“I’m not lying.”

“You’re always lying.”

Harsh, but kind of true.

“Sure thing, man,” Dean said, once again lying through his teeth. Well, at least he was deceiving the officer for a good cause. Novak still hadn’t moved and Dean was started to get antsy. If he didn’t get out there soon, he might miss something, and the bastard that Mildred and Eileen were trying to get might get away. “I’ll leave, but you have to let me out of here first.”

“Right,” Novak said, seeming to remember himself. He stepped aside and Dean opened the door, the two exiting just as Meg Masters was walking by.

“Clarence?” she said. Novak instantly tensed. “He’s pretty,” she commented, looking Dean up and down, her expression slightly off. Castiel tried to puzzle out what was making her look like she’d swallowed a lemon before he realized that it was jealousy spread across her features.

“That’s awful kind of you to say,” Dean said, looping his arm around Novak’s waist which got him a pointed glare from the officer. “And you are?”

Meg was staring at Dean’s hand. She swallowed hard, and then painted a smile on her face.

“Nobody important. Have a nice night. Cas, tell Balthazar I’m happy for him, will ya?”

After Meg was out of earshot, Novak spoke up.

“Remove your arm or lose it.”

Dean took a step to the side, but considered Novak for a second.

“Can I stay now that I’ve helped make your ex-wife uncomfortable?”

“Do what you want. I need a drink,” Castiel said, stalking off toward the open bar. Dean was pretty sure that wasn’t a good idea considering what had happened last time Novak had needed a drink. He might have told Novak that, but it was around that time he noticed Eileen signaling to him and Sam.

“He’s not coming,” she told them both. “We’ve got word he heard about the failed robbery in time not to collect.”

Well that was all kinds of disappointing. And yet something ate at Dean, something he’d noticed but not quite realized. He tuned out the conversation, thinking long and hard just what it was that had him a little wound up. He looked through his head, chasing down the feeling and after a few seconds intense concentration he remembered a flicker of something in his peripheral vision. A flash that showed up sometimes, at odd moments. And there wasn’t a face, but there was an impression, some kind of idea that there was someone who had been there all along and Dean just hadn’t quite spent the time trying to puzzle out who it was.

“No, he was here,” Dean said quietly, feeling disturbed at the thought that somehow this man had been there all along. “and I think he still might be here.”

****************

Everybody was waiting for speeches when suddenly someone ran up onstage and started speaking. Novak looked up in horror as he realized that Dean Winchester had taken the stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen, or y’know whatever, I just have a couple of things to say before these guys take it away. Great ceremony by the way,” Dean said to the couple that was staring at him, as confused as everyone else. “I was just wondering if everyone could please take off any hats or glasses, that would be much appreciated. I assure you nothing is wrong, this is just for safety purposes.”

Everyone in the crowd looked at each other confused and removed anything they were wearing on their head. All but one, whose twisted smile Dean could see despite the distance between them. And Dean knew. That was the guy. Azazel stood and made his way toward the entrance at the front of the room. Dean hopped off stage and ran after him, as did Sam and Eileen. Before anyone could get closer, Azazel stopped and plucked up one of the guests, holding a knife to her throat. The people around her started screaming, and Novak leapt to his feet, already planning methods to extract the captive safely.

“I want you to answer a question for me,” said the man, speaking only to Dean. The knife never leaving the woman’s neck, Azazel took off his hat, his yellowed eyes boring into Dean’s as he pressed down hard enough to draw a small amount of blood. “Do you want to play a game?”

“Just let her go,” Dean said calmly. “You’re going to be alright, sweetheart,” he said, trying to reassure the woman whose chest was heaving with sobs. Castiel discreetly started making his way behind the yellow eyed man so he could have a chance at taking him down while he was distracted. If he would just move the knife from the woman’s throat he could…

Azazel had shifted slightly and Novak took his opening to lunge at the man. Azazel dropped the woman and turned around slashing at Novak. Dean ran forward before he knew what he was doing.

“Cas!” he yelled dropping down next to the bleeding officer. Azazel had already used the confusion and terror to make a clean escape, disappearing as though he were made of shadow.

“I’m fine,” the officer said. “Just a cut.”

“Yeah, alright, sure,” Dean said trying to get a look at he injury. “’Tis but a flesh wound and all that. Shit. Can someone call an ambulance?”

“Nobody call an ambulance, I’m fine,” Cas said, sitting up. “He barely even cut me. I don’t think he was trying.”

“Cassie, what the hell is going on?” Balthazar asked, suddenly knelt right beside Dean. “Who was that madman?”

The entire reception had been thrown into a confusion and after Novak had assured Balthazar multiple times that he was fine, his friend left to deal with the panicking guests. Dean tried to help Novak up, but the officer stubbornly picked himself off the ground, clutching his stomach and gritting his teeth.

“Look, Novak, someone needs to bandage that up.”

“I can take care of that.”

Dean ignored the officer and took him into the bathroom, quickly stripping off Novak’s jacket, tie, and shirt and handing the shirt back to him.

“Keep pressure on it, I’m going to go find a first aid kit.”

By the time Dean got back, Cas’ white dress shirt was a mess of red. Dean moved Novak’s hand away so he could see how bad it was. Luckily, Cas was right, it was fairly shallow, just deep enough to bleed like a motherfucker, but not deep enough to do any real damage. It was calculated, which worried Dean almost as much as the words still echoing in his head: Do you want to play a game?

“So you were telling the truth,” Novak said at last, while Dean finished cleaning out the cut. “About the CIA.”

“Yep.”

“My apologies, I suppose.”

“I’m sure I’ll forgive you someday.”

Dean finished wrapping the bandage around Novak’s stomach and then passed him back his jacket so that he wouldn’t have to walk back into the reception hall shirtless. Cas accepted it.

“Thank you, Dean.”

“That was a bullshit move you pulled out there. He could have stabbed you,” Dean said back, because apparently neither one of them were capable of being respectful to the other for longer than a few minutes.

“It’s my job,” Novak answered simply. “Besides, it saved the woman, didn’t it?”

“Fucking idiot.”

Before Novak could come up with any sort of scathing reply, Jo burst in.

“Cas, are you alright? Mom and Bobby are freaking out. We didn’t know where you were.”

“I’m fine Jo,” Novak reassured his sister. “Really, ask Winchester,” Novak said, nodding his head toward Dean. Jo looked at Dean.

“Yeah, Cassie’s fit as a fiddle. The cut’s gonna hurt like a bitch for a while, but it’s not bad.”

“Jesus Christ, Cas, this was supposed to be your week off,” Jo said, taking her brother and leading him out of the bathroom. Dean watched as Novak left and let out a stressed sigh, stuck between thoughts of the way the yellow eyed man had seemed to know him somehow, the camera flashes that kept appearing in random memories if he thought hard enough, and wondering when the hell it had started bothering him so much to see Officer Novak with a fucking cut.

*****************

“So,” Jo started. It had taken a while for the two of them to convince Ellen and Bobby that they were both fine and would be okay back at their apartment.

“So what?” Castiel asked, lying on their couch and watching the news. The cut on his stomach was throbbing, but he’d had worse.

“Just you and that Winchester guy looked kind of cozy when I walked in there,” she said. “And a guy who hates you usually doesn’t bandage you up.”

“Are you trying to say something Jo?”

“Just making conversation.”

“Well, stop.”

Jo paused for a second before deciding to share something she’d been sitting on.

“You remember a while back when you went out and got drunk off your head?”

“Not particularly. I remember the morning after. Vividly.”

“You know Dean Winchester brought you home that night. To make sure you got back safe.”

“Speak plainly, Jo,” said Cas, wishing his sister would cut to the chase. He had wondered if perhaps Dean had seen him that night, if only because he seemed to have a recollection of Dean saying he was a good cop that he otherwise couldn’t place. That and the fact that Castiel Novak would never, ever believe the man was a psychic, and he had to have known about Cas’ hangover somehow.

“I’m just saying be careful. I don't like whatever shit this guy’s mixed up in, and if you get stabbed for being stupid, I will resurrect you and kill you, you understand me.”

“I understand.”

“Do you? Because the last time I saw you acting like this around someone was when you first met Meg, and that didn’t turn out so great.”

“I am not falling for Winchester’s act,” Castiel said flatly, angry that his sister had brought up Meg, when she knew that they didn’t talk about her. They never talked about her. “And I am certainly not falling for Dean Winchester.”

Jo looked him over for a second before relenting.

“Good,” she said. The two watched the rest of the news in tense silence.

*****************

“Excellent work, Ruby,” said Azazel as Ruby relayed the conversations she had been having with Sam Winchester all night. “Really, this has all been so enlightening.”

“How are you planning on starting?” Ruby asked. Azazel loved his games, loved to pick people apart slowly by having them solve his puzzles and it never ceased to amaze her the insight he had into other’s heads.

“I think I’ll start with the one who got away.”

*****************

Jody Mills signed for the package she had received, and set it down on her desk, curious as to what exactly would be sent to her at her office instead of her home. She quickly opened it, and let out a surprised yell when she saw that inside rested a cut off hand, a watch still latched around its wrist. There was a picture of Dean Winchester and a note also nestled inside.

Dear Clea,

I’d hate for the doctor to lose his head. You have twenty four hours.

-A


	4. It's a Bird, It's a Plane... It's a Serial Killer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the final chapter. Hope you enjoy. Also, for some reason the chapter names get progressively longer. I'm not going to question it. Anyways, strap in for a nail biting conclusion of this four part series. It's been fun writing!

Dean and Sam weren’t supposed to go to the park without their mom’s permission, but when she was at work doing whatever she did, they weren’t supposed to call her unless it was an emergency and their dad had long hours down at the police station, so they often did as they pleased when their parents weren’t home. Dean, being older by two years liked to show off, and Sam often tried to imitate him, despite arguing the stupidity of some of his actions.

This particular day, Dean had decided to show his little brother how he’d figured out how to swing between trees by holding onto the branches and had proudly declared that he could fly. Sam had rolled his eyes and explained to Dean that wasn’t actually flying, and he didn’t even like flying anyway, which they had found out two years earlier when their family had almost taken a vacation that had been derailed when both their parents had had to work and didn’t have time to drive the distance to visit Dean and Sam’s grandparents, and Dean had refused to go up in a plane.

Dean didn’t particularly like it when Sam brought this up, so he responded by calling Sam names and telling him he was just jealous that he couldn’t fly like Dean could. Sam took another look at what Dean was doing and then climbed a nearby tree and attempted to do it for himself. He quickly picked it up, and the two brothers forgot their argument, having fun with their new game. That was until Sam missed a branch and fell ten feet to the ground.

“Dean!” he shouted, clutching at his leg. Dean quickly climbed down to look at it and sucked in a breath. It was definitely broken.

“Sam, I know it hurts, but just stay calm okay. I got to get us back to the house so I can call a doctor.”

Sam was doing his best not to cry and nodded. Dean was just glad he knew he could carry Sam home, since he’d had to do so when he lost several bets against his brother. He very carefully got Sam to stand up so he could hold onto his shoulders and Dean picked up his little brother’s legs and winced when he heard the cry of pain.

“C’mon Sam. It’s not that bad. Remember that time dad got shot in the shoulder? This is nothing. You’re fine. We’ll get you home, and the doctor will get it all bandaged up. Then we can go for ice cream. Or make marshmallow nachos.”

“You said that was stupid,” Sam sniffed. Dean did his best not to jostle his brother too much as he walked quickly back to his house, but he could tell he wasn’t doing a great job by the way his brother would gasp in pain every once in a while.

“So you don’t want me to make them then?”

“I get to make them,” Sam said. Dean agreed immediately and Sam felt a rising panic because Dean was being so nice to him. “Do you think I’m going to die?”

“What? No Sam, you’re not going to die. You just broke you’re leg. You’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t let something like that happen to you. Mom and Dad would kill me.”

“Thanks,” Sam said sarcastically. For a ten year old, he had really mastered the concept. Probably as a result of having Dean as an older brother. At least this reassured him that he was actually going to be okay.

Once they got home, Dean had called an ambulance and his parents, the latter of which Dean had gone scarily quiet for. Sam had been able to hear his dad’s part of the conversation and Dean’s quiet ‘yes sirs’ back, but when their mom had spoken to him, he hadn’t breathed a word until she was done. After that, while Dean and Sam were waiting for the ambulance to arrive, Dean turned to his little brother again.

“I really wouldn’t ever let anything really bad happen to you,” he said. Dean never really brought it up again, and often joked about Sam being uncoordinated and clumsy and that was why he had broken his leg in the years after that. Sam always wondered exactly what his mom must have said to Dean to elicit that response, since his brother wasn’t the touchy feely type at the best of times, but he was glad he had that one moment in which he absolutely knew his brother would always be there for him. It had helped him through the two years Dean had spent away with their mom while Sam had stayed with their dad. It had made it easy to let Dean back into his life, even with his brother’s cavalier attitude towards life and constantly changing jobs. Because Dean acted, that was something Sam had always known about him, but for a few seconds he had let the mask slip, and even though he was young, Sam had understood the incredible importance of having someone tell you that they would protect you from harm.

**************************PRESENT DAY**********************************

Dean had just gotten home from the disaster of a wedding when his cell phone started to ring. He groaned and looked down to check the ID, hoping it was someone he could ignore. When he saw the Chief was calling him, he swiped the phone to answer.

“Look, Jody, whatever it is, can it wait until-?”

“Get your ass down here right now.”

And then she hung up. Dean stared at his phone. That was unusual. Whatever was wrong must be really serious to have gotten Jody so worked up. He called his brother so that they could meet at the station.

“Hey Sam, we have a case.”

“Right now? Seriously?” Sam asked. Dean heard muffled explaining as Sam covered the phone.

“That chick from the wedding over?” Dean asked.

“What?” Sam asked, sounding surprised. “You mean Ruby? No, man. Eileen just thought it would be safer if she stuck around for a while. We were just talking.”

“Uh huh. I’ll bet.”

“Shut up, it’s not like that. Listen, do you know what this is about? Any way we can skip it? I’m beat.”

“Jody sounded really freaked out. I think we should take this. Meet me at the station. Bring Eileen if it makes you feel better. You guys can continue talking,” Dean said. Sam muttered some response about Eileen actually having a job and probably being busy, but agreed to meet Dean down at the station.

Sam and Dean got there around the same time, Sam being sans Eileen who had said that she was going to stick at Sam’s place an type up reports, which Dean had squinted at but Sam had made no indication Eileen’s continued presence at his apartment meant anything. Whatever, the kids would figure themselves out eventually.

A tired looking Officer Novak was being handed coffee by Charlie. He thanked her, and Charlie started saying something about how she was sorry his week off got cut short and was it true that some psycho had shown up at the wedding and if Cas had taken him down? Novak sighed and let her talk for a while during which he sipped at his coffee.

“Hey, Charlie, Novak, do you know what this is about?” Dean asked. “Jody called us down.”

“Good, you’re here. Chief Mills asked to bring you to her office once you got here,” Novak said, his tone clipped and distant. Dean figured he must be exhausted, because usually he tried to sound a little more like he really didn’t want Dean there, or at least insulted him somehow. Charlie followed behind Novak as they both made their way into Jody’s office. Sam and Dean walked in after them and Jody held up a finger as she finished a phone call. Her face was paler than usual and she seemed a bit shaken. Dean didn’t like the look of whatever was happening one bit.

“Winchester, you might want to sit down for this,” Jody started. Dean’s eyes immediately fell to the closed box beside her.

“What’s in the box?” he joked, drawing stares from everyone around him. He cleared his throat and ignored Jody’s warning glance so he could open it. Even before he did, the half warning Jody managed to get out alerted him that he wouldn’t like what he saw, but he still wasn’t quite prepared for the shock of seeing exactly what was inside.

It was a hand. A god damn hand, but that wasn’t even the worst part. Because Dean knew that watch. Without even bothering to process the information he caught sight of a picture and the note. Of course.

Do you want to play a game?

“Shit,” he said. “Fuck, this can’t be happening.”

“Do you know who this is?” Jody asked carefully. “Or who sent this?”

“Yeah,” Dean said. He looked back at the hand and swallowed. He couldn’t do this. He was never good at this. He lost his head when it got personal, he knew that. “Yeah, I know.”

“Well?” Novak asked when Dean didn’t elaborate.

“Give him a minute, Cas,” Charlie said to her partner. Novak gave her a look that suggested he didn’t think much of her advice but kept silent. Still Dean couldn’t speak, a kind of panic rising in him. He looked toward his brother for help and Sam stared back, uncomprehending. Then he suddenly turned to Jody.

“Jody, you know the difference between a prostitute and a vacuum cleaner?”

“Excuse me?” Jody asked, sounding like she really didn’t give a fuck. Sam pressed on.

“You have to plug a vacuum cleaner in before it sucks.”

For three straight seconds there was dead silence and then Dean let out a shaky laugh. Sam let out a sigh of relief.

“That was terrible. I could come up with a better joke in my sleep,” he said. Dean took a deep breath. He just needed to stay focused. He could do this. Hey, he’d always outsmarted the bad guy before, right? “Ash Miles. That’s the guy whose hand it is. I’m pretty sure the guy playing operation was the asshole that cut Cas up this afternoon. Good news, Novak, you can pay him back.”

“Ash Miles. Alright, we’ll get on that. Can you tell me who he is to you?” Jody asked, clearly relieved that Dean was alright again.

“Ex,” Dean said bluntly. Jody and the two officers looked a little surprised and Dean was glad when nobody brought it up. It wasn’t like he was hiding, at all. He just didn’t want to deal with questions or judgments or anything at the moment, which was one of the reasons he just didn’t bring it up to people he worked with.

“The Ash?” Sam asked. Dean and Sam had kept in touch while he was staying with their mom, so he knew all about Ash. Kicked out of MIT for fighting. He and Dean had bonded over being drop outs, and parted ways before either really wanted to. Dean had always sort of wondered what would have happened if things had been different. “Jesus, I’m sorry.”

“Uh huh,” Dean said. “Met him in Illinois. It’s been years since I saw him last. Why go after him?”

“There’s a note,” Jody pointed out. Dean had until then not read it, but at the reminder he snatched it up and read it out loud.

“Dear Clea. I’d hate for the doctor to lose his head. You have twenty four hours. -A” he said. “The doctor’s Ash. He used to go by Dr. Badass. Okay, that’s one thing. What time does the watch say?”

“Twenty three hundred hours,” Novak said. “I’m assuming we have until the same time tomorrow to find him.”

“But who’s Clea?” Sam asked. “If he meant to write it to you, why would he address it someone else?”

“Wait!” Charlie shouted sudden excitement lighting up her face. “Clea, a doctor. Guys this is Dr. Strange! Clea was one of his love interests, right?”

“Shit, you’re right,” Dean realized. “But if this is Dr. Strange, then he’s talking about 1602, right?”

“When he lost his head,” Charlie said, the excitement draining away instantly. “Oh, God.”

“It gets worse,” Dean said thinking out loud. “This won’t be the last victim. It’s part of the game.”

“What does that mean?” Novak asked.

“In the comic, Dr. Strange had important information he couldn’t talk about until he was dead. We might only get the next clue if we don’t solve this one,” Dean explained. “He’s giving me a choice. Save this victim or the next one.”

“Or he’s playing with you,” Novak pointed out. “He wants you to think that. So you won’t save this person and he still kills the next one. We don’t know if he’s playing by any particular rules. Who’s to say we’ve even interpreted this correctly?”

“I know I’m right. But it doesn’t matter, does it? We find out where Ash is and we figure out where to go from there, because if we play by his rules, then he wins.”

“Dean, there’s been cases like this before,” Jody warned. “I’ve been making some calls since I was waiting and there are five similar instances of some sort of game this guy is playing. Two in New York, another in Boston, one in Austin. A really nasty case in Springfield, Illinois. This isn’t going to be pretty.”

“Thanks. That makes me feel better,” Dean said. “Sam, you stay with Novak, you guys can see if you can scare up anymore information from the wedding party. Maybe catch the yellow eyed bastard. Charlie and I have to see if we can figure out what the fuck this means.”

Sam seemed surprised that Dean didn’t want to work with him, but Dean didn’t feel like explaining. Novak was his safest bet at the moment, since Dean didn’t currently own a gun and he didn’t have time to go down to his dad’s…

“I need to make a few calls first,” Dean said, pulling out his phone and dialing his mom. When she didn’t pick up, he called his dad.

“Dean, do you have any idea what time it is?” John said, his voice sounding less intimidating because of the huge yawn that broke through it.

“You need to get some place safe. Get out of town or something. I tried calling mom, but she didn’t answer, so you need to get through to her and let her know.”

“What’s going on?” John asked, all hints of tiredness instantly gone. “Dean, what the hell did you get mixed up in?”

“There’s this guy. I don’t know. Does it matter? Just make sure you and mom are safe.”

There was a beat of silence.

“She’s coming here.”

“What?”

“Her flight gets in tonight.”

“Shit. Go get her. Make sure she’s okay.”

“And Sam-“

“Sam’ll be fine. I’ve got someone on him.”

“You know she’s not just going to hide, don’t you? And neither am I. If someone is threatening you and Sam-“

“The best thing you can do right now is make sure that you and Mom are safe. That’s it,” Dean waited for an answer, but his dad had already hung up. “Damn it!”

******************

Novak was still arguing with the Chief about letting Winchester order them about when, speak of the Devil, the man himself walked right through the door.

“I thought I told you to go with Sam,” he said.

“There’s nothing at the wedding, and you know that. This ‘yellow eyed bastard’ as you’ve dubbed him, doesn’t seem the type to leave evidence at a wedding that it seems he attended for your benefit. I would be better suited helping you and Charlie looking for Ash Miles.”

“He has a point,” said Chief Mills. Dean looked and forth between the two of them and decided to lay it out on the line. Novak had a sister. He would get it. He had to.

“This isn’t about you being useful. This is about keeping Sam safe. I don’t care what you do, just keep him out of the way.”

“You can’t be serious. I am one of the best cops we have, and you want me on guard duty?”

“That’s why I want you on guard duty!” Dean shouted. He took a deep breath and lowered the volume of his voice. “I can’t do this if I don’t know that Sam’s going to be okay. Please, tell me you understand that. If it were Jo, what would you do?”

Novak didn’t say anything for a moment, his eyes glancing over toward the Chief. She looked between the two of them and sighed.

“It’s your choice, Novak,” she said. The officer sighed and looked back at Dean, meeting his eyes again.

“Fine. But you make damn sure you catch this guy. I’m not a babysitter.”

“Thanks, Cas. Really,” Dean said.

“And I’m not pretending to investigate with him. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this properly. I’ll take two cops and we can set up at Sam’s apartment. That way we can figure out the layout and make sure that Sam’s kept safe. Since I’m guessing your brother won’t leave town-“

“No way, not without knocking him out.”

“Then we’ll just have to set up some kind of defense measures around the apartment.”

“Okay, Winchester, get going with Charlie,” Jody said, and Dean took off without a backwards glance. “Novak, you can take Alfie and Zeke. I’m going to need everybody else either on this or on call. You good?”

“Yes.”

“Go, then,” Chief Mills said, already picking up her phone to make more calls. Likely she was trying to figure out any kind of patterns between the different cases she’d found besides the obvious. Cas was itching to get his hand on some data, and sent a message to Charlie for her to keep him updated. He could look after the younger Winchester and solve the case at the same time. It would just require a little bit of mental gymnastics.

Sam tried to be stubborn about not needing to be kept out of the way, but Castiel was persistent in insisting that he would only distract Dean from solving the case and eventually convinced him that it would be better for everybody if he just stayed safe. Or at least that’s what Sam tried to tell himself, but he still felt a compulsion to be out there with Dean trying to solve whatever was going on. He at the very least convinced Novak that they should do what the could while benched to help out. Sam drove the Impala back to his apartment and cursed himself when he remembered that Eileen was still inside. How could he explain her presence to Novak without giving up her identity?

When he got inside, Eileen looked up from her coffee and paperwork with a signed hello, and stopped when she saw the three officers coming in behind Sam. Sam made sure she could see his lips as he introduced her with the only plausible explanation he could think of.

“This is my girlfriend,” he said. Eileen raised her eyebrows and nodded slightly to indicate she understood she wasn’t supposed to argue against this point. Sam relaxed. Of course Eileen got it. She was a professional. No need to freak out.

“Will she be staying?” Novak asked. Sam nodded. “Great. More civilians to watch after. Tell your brother he owes me when this is all over.”

Novak stormed off to examine the apartment and set up Alfie and the other officer around the perimeter in order to keep an eye out for anyone who might try to get in. Once he was gone, Eileen turned to Sam for an explanation.

“Azazel’s after Dean. He has some kind of riddle he wants him to solve.” Sam mouthed at her. She signed to him that she understood, and that they couldn’t tell the officers who she was.

“I’ll stay with you,” she said out loud. “To make sure you’re alright.”

Sam signed a thank you, and Eileen alerted Mildred about the current situation. She relaxed somewhat when she saw Mildred message her back that they had another operative from the CIA on the case that would be trying to keep Dean safe. Now she only had to make sure Sam made it through one of Azazel’s twisted games.

*****************

“He has to know,” Mary told her ex-husband as she loaded up her gun. Whatever son of a bitch was trying to hurt her sons was going to pay. “I should have told him ages ago.”

“We wanted them to have a normal life,” John pointed out. “You wanted them to have a normal life.”

“Well that didn’t really work out, did it? Now Sam’s working with a CIA operative and Dean’s psychic. We really should make the list for parents of the year,” Mary muttered, checking that she had ammunition. John raised an eyebrow at her.

“You haven’t been in the field in ages.”

“Takes one to know one, Mr. Retired Too Early,” she replied. “Just because I’ve been riding the desk doesn’t mean I don’t still kick ass. You threaten my kids, you threaten me.”

John smiled for a second because it was nice to see after all these years, Mary still hadn’t lost her fire. Even if he didn’t particularly like it when that fire was pointed on him.

“So what do we do?” he asked her. She tossed him his pistol, and he caught it without thinking.

“Watch. We can’t get in the way. We don’t want this guy knowing we’re coming. You said Sam’s got eyes on him, then I say we stick with Dean. Make sure he hasn’t bitten off more than he can chew.”

“Sounds about right.”

“And we tell them both everything after this,” Mary said. John sighed.

“Dean’s never going to forgive me.”

“I’m the one who didn’t want to tell him,” Mary said, sounding confused. John laughed humorlessly.

“You think that matters? He always loved you best. Couldn’t see something wrong with you if he tried. Besides, you’re both right. You and me ending, that was my fault anyway.”

Mary paused in her preparations for a second.

“No it wasn’t. We weren’t in love anymore. That wasn’t anyone’s fault. It just happens.”

“You weren’t in love anymore,” John corrected softly. Mary looked away and hardened her stance, throwing a duffel over her shoulder.

“We’ll talk later. Right now we have some asshole to kill.”

“Tell it like it is, Mary,” John said with eyebrows raised. “The CIA sign off on that execution order?”

“Who gives a fuck?”

Fair enough. John and Mary made their way out to Mary’s rental car and rolled out.

******************

“Charlie, we’ve been at this for an hour. It’s not a street number. It’s too simple. Besides, nothing fits.”

Charlie didn’t pause in her speed reading to answer Dean. Dean kept searching through everything he knew about Azazel, trying to pinpoint one thing or another that would clue him in to where Ash was being kept.

1602\. 1602. 1602.

“Try years,” he said. Charlie stopped scrolling and looked up.

“Santa Barbara wasn’t even founded yet.”

“Just try it. It was a year in the comic, maybe it’s a year in real life.”

Charlie gave him a look.

“You knew what I meant,” Dean complained. Charlie went back on her computer and typed in the year and area. A hit came up and she started reading.

“In the year 1602, the most exciting thing that happened was Sebastián Vizcáino explored and named the Santa Barbara channel.”

“That has to be it. Get Jody, I think I know where he might be.”

“Where?”

“Our first case. It was out by the docks,” Dean laughed, the sound coming out slightly dark. “Don’t you get it? He’s saying he knows me. He’s been keeping track.”

Charlie shivered.

“I don’t like this.”

“You and me both, sister,” Dean said.

******************

Ash was in bad shape when they found him. He was tied in the same chair that Charlie had been in, and Dean couldn’t help thinking that he somehow had managed to stay just the same. Still a genius that somehow decided the best look in life was a mullet and a general air of unkemptness. Christ, he’d always figured if he saw Ash again it would be under better circumstances.

As the paramedics got to him and let Jody know that he would be fine, he’d just lost a lot of blood, Dean backed away from everything so he could have a second to breathe. Ash was okay. Dean really could do this.

Then why did he feel like he was going to fall apart by the time this was all over?

“Hey Dean,” Charlie said, pulling him from his thoughts. “You good?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

“I wouldn’t have figured you for the type,” Charlie said, conversationally. Dean looked up confused.

“You’re one to talk. Look, I don’t really want to talk about this right-“

“No, not that,” Charlie said, quickly. “I meant not the type to panic. You always seem so in control. That’s all I meant.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Don’t sweat it. But really, are you okay?”

“Fine. It was just weird seeing him like that. I mean we see victims all the time, but with Ash… It doesn’t feel real, you know what I mean?”

“Do you know why he would target someone that you haven’t seen in years?”

“No, I’m…” Dean tried to get back together the part he had to play for the cops. The one he had let slip the second this terrible game had begun. “I’m not picking anything up. Spirits aren’t really feeling very talkative right now.”

“Okay. You pick up on anything, let me know. Get some sleep we’ll tell you if he contacts us again.”

Dean took another look around the room and caught sight of a flash of metal. He stopped Charlie from leaving and got closer to it, breaking apart some of the rotten wood of the shack they were in to retrieve what looked like a walkman. Dean took it out and put the headphones in so he could listen.

“Hi Dean,” warbled a young voice. No. No, no, no, no. “Time to save your Eleanor, Mr. Pool. You’ll find me where they lock up all the worst people.”

Ben was six years old. He was a fucking kid. Dean punched his hand right through the wall, to Charlie’s distress. She grabbed a roll of bandages and started wrapping up the bleeding hand right away.

“Dean, what is it? What happened?”

“Looks like I’m playing Deadpool now,” he said, passing the tape to Charlie and letting her listen. By the time she was done, Dean had leaned his head against the wall. “There’s a girl I dated in high school. After I got back from Illinois, I thought I’d catch up with her. Turns out she had a kid in college. The dad wasn’t much of a dad, and he took off before she ever even had Ben. I hang out with her kid sometimes. It was nice, you know. Took him to a baseball game last year. I’ll babysit sometimes, if she just wants some peace and quiet for a while. And Lisa appreciated him having a guy to hang around. God, she’s probably going through hell right now. He’s six, Charlie. He’s got to be fucking terrified.”

“We’ll find him.”

“It was Ash or the next victim. You know it was. You only get the information if the doctor loses his head.”

“Dean, you couldn’t have known. Besides, he gave you a hint for this kid. We just need to focus on that,” Charlie said. Dean didn’t answer. “This isn’t your fault.”

“Isn’t it?” Dean asked. “I just had to show off, didn’t I? Couldn’t fucking leave well enough alone.”

“Hey,” Charlie said. “You saved lives. You put a lot of very bad people away by working with us. So I don’t want to hear another word about how fucking terrible you are, because that’s complete and utter bullshit. It’s not your fault that this guy exists. It’s not your fault that he’s a sadistic fuck. And you know what? If he wasn’t doing this to you, it would just be someone else. None of this is your fault. But that doesn’t mean we can’t catch the bastard. You with me, Dean?”

Dean nodded.

“No day but today, right?” he said, doing his best to smile. Charlie thought about it for a second.

“Did you just quote Rent?”

“Shut up. We have research to do,” Dean said.

********************

Back at the station, Jody had been given the job of calling Lisa Braeden and informing her that they had a lead on where her son might be. It turned out he had gone missing late in the afternoon the day before. Dean had a feeling that all of this had been carefully planned out, for whatever moment Azazel had chosen to reveal himself. Maybe he hadn’t even known Dean would be at the wedding. He’d probably just shown up to collect the ring and seen Dean there. How long had the man been watching him? How much did he know?

Dean figured if he knew about Ash, that meant Azazel had likely done his research pretty thoroughly. He tried not to think about it too hard, because if he did, his skin started to crawl.

“Okay, Eleanor was locked up in a camp in North Korea. Like a prison. He said he was locked up where all the worst people go, right?” Charlie asked. Dean nodded.

“You thinking Alcatraz?”

“Uh huh.”

“That’s five hours away.”

“Not by helicopter it’s not.”

Dean gulped. Helicopter. That was worse than a plane. So much worse.

“That’s just… that’s fantastic. Great. Flying metal death trap. What could go wrong?”

“Need me to hold your hand?” Charlie asked. Very funny, Dean thought.

“Not unless you want to lose circulation.”

When the helicopter got there, Dean and Charlie clambered on board. Dean instantly shut his eyes and started humming. It was a long three hours before they finally touched down on the island. Charlie and Dean were off the helicopter immediately, searching for Ben. Dean paused when he heard terrified whimpers, and beckoned Charlie over.

“Please, I want my mom,” Ben said to some kind of guard. Dean tensed when he heard a pained shriek come from Ben’s mouth.

“Please shoot the bastard that’s guarding him.”

Charlie took the safety off her gun.

“If I have to,” she said. Dean waited while she slunk into the room near where Ben was being held. Dean stopped breathing as he waited for her to enter the room, laying low and watching from the window.

“Police! Nobody move!” Charlie shouted as she came in. The guard turned startled and reached for his gun. Charlie shot him through his upper arm before he could get it more than halfway up and tackled him to the ground, cuffing him quickly. Dean climbed through the window and started untying Ben immediately.

“Hey kiddo. It’s going to be fine. I’m going to get you back to your mom.”

“Dean, what’s happening?” Ben asked. Dean hugged him, probably a little too tightly, before letting him go.

“Nothing you need to worry about. I promise. You and Lisa will be fine. You like helicopters, Ben?” Dean asked. Ben nodded slowly. “Good, cause we’re gonna ride in one on the way back. Sounds nice, right?”

Pretending not to be terrified the entire flight back wasn’t exactly easy, but every time Dean caught sight of Ben’s scared face he reminded himself that he needed to stay calm for the kid’s sake. If he started showing just how messed up this whole ordeal had made him over the past couple of hours, Ben would crumble right along with him, and Dean didn’t want that. It was bad enough he could already see the rope burn on his wrist and ankles, and the bruise on his cheek where the guy guarding him had hit him. Dean wished Charlie had gotten to shoot the bastard a couple more times.

Seeing Lisa’s relieved expression when Ben was returned to her was a kind of bandaid on the restlessness Dean was experiencing. He was still ahead. He had managed to save two lives so far. He just didn’t want to know how many more he was expected to save that day. He checked his watch. Eleven a.m.

“Twelve more hours of this nightmare,” he said to Charlie. “Who do you think is next?”

Jody’s yell from her office had Charlie and Dean running in.

“We have a problem.”

*****************

It was around three in the morning when Castiel heard a soft thump on the other side of the apartment. He made his way quickly over, and when he saw Alfie lying motionlessly on the ground, he ran instantly to his side.

“Alfie?” he asked, reaching his hand in front of his mouth, the feeling of breath relieving his immediate worries as he checked the windows Alfie had been monitoring. None of them had been breached. Suddenly, someone behind him slapped a cloth over his face. Cas tried to hold his breath as he struggled, knowing by the surprised first inhale that he had taken that it was chloroform.

“I really am sorry about this, Novak,” said Zeke. Novak got a few good hits in before his vision started to waver and he started to breathe against his will. “I have to do this. I’m so sorry.”

Castiel pretended to pass out, and was still clinging to consciousness when Zeke let him fall.

“Sam!” he yelled when Zeke had taken a step back. That was all he got out before the cloth was back on his face and then everything was dark.

*******************

“I had to do it,” Zeke repeated, sitting in the interrogation room across from Dean and Charlie. “I had to. He was going to kill my family. He still might.”

“Yeah, well you know what?” Charlie asked, leaning forward and looking intimidating as the bad guys she put away. “Cas is my family. So you are going to fucking start talking, or I am going to personally make sure the rest of your life is a living hell. And if you think I’m bad, you should see this guy,” Charlie said, nodding her head toward Dean. “He’ll fuck up your after life for getting his brother hurt. So if you want to redeem yourself the slightest bit, you are going to tell us everything.”

Zeke was silent. Dean cleared his throat and started saying what he had been piecing together.

“You were sent here for Charlie, right?” he asked. Zeke’s eyes widened. “To keep an eye on her. Azazel was the stalker.”

Charlie paled at the revelation. Dean had realized all that time ago that Charlie was escaping some kind of threat, but apparently not even Charlie had known just how powerful or dangerous the madman chasing her had been. Well, if there was some comfort to be gained from all of this, at least Dean’s nightmare had spared her one of her own.

“He said that if I did, my family would be safe. I’d get to start over somewhere new,” Zeke said, a pleading tone in his voice.

“He followed Charlie out here, because lemme guess: he likes interesting people. He likes someone who can keep up with his games. So you heard I was a psychic and you told him.”

“He started telling me to keep an eye on you. I didn’t think you were telling the truth but he was obsessed,” Zeke admitted. Dean nodded. “And when you solved all those cases…”

“He wanted to test the psychic out for himself,” Dean said. “See if I was all I was cracked up to be.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You will be,” Dean said. “When you rot in jail for the rest of your life.”

“I had kids I had to think about.”

“Yeah, well the way I see it, we’ve all got people we care about. You don’t get to pick who’s more important.”

“What would you have done?”

Dean and Charlie looked at each other and both left without answering. Zeke yelled after them.

“What would you have done!”

***********************

When Castiel woke, everything was blue and glittering. As his vision focused, he realized he was in a chair, overbalanced over the one meter diving board above a pool. Hanging below him was a weight that was tied to the chair he was in, and the chair itself was attached by a rope to the back of the diving board. A pressure around his chest suggested some kind of explosives were attached to him. His wrist and ankles were bound, but he wasn’t gagged and he quickly took advantage of that to begin shouting.

“Already with screaming,” said the yellow eyed man, suddenly strolling into view. “We haven’t even gotten to the fun part yet.”

“Help!” Castiel shouted. Azazel tsked at him.

“Useless, I’m afraid. Nobody can hear you. Well, except me.”

Castiel kept calling for help for a few minutes but when no one responded, he fell silent. He stared at the pool in front of him and tried not to wonder whether or not it would hurt to drown.

“Giving up already, Castiel?” asked the man. “That’s too bad. Especially since there’s still a shot for you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Castiel asked carefully. He understood that he didn’t have much leverage in his position and talking back really wasn’t the best option when with a single motion, he could drop to a watery death.

“I’m going to offer the psychic a choice,” said the yellow eyed man. “You or his brother.”

Castiel couldn’t help but laugh at that one.

“Might as well kill me now then,” he said, immediately regretting his choice of words. Oh well, there wasn’t much he could do now anyway. There never had been. “Of course he’s going to save his brother. He doesn’t even like me.”

“We’ll see,” said the man, taking out a phone to make a call. “Make a sound and I’ll add your pretty little sister to the list of people I try to kill today, you understand?”

Castiel understood. He shut his mouth tight and cringed as the man winked his approval.

“Dean,” said the man, putting the phone on speaker. A tinny voice filled the empty room, echoing off the walls and just intelligible over the hum of the water filter.

“Azazel,” Dean answered, with disgust. “Where are they?”

“Straight to business, huh? I’m rather disappointed. I thought you liked to mix your play with your work. It’s one of the things I admire most about you.”

“I’m not in the mood. Tell me where Sam and Cas are.”

“Not so fast. See, I have a proposition for you. A Sophie’s choice, if you will. You have two options. Pick either Sam or Cas, or you can wait and I’ll either tell you where they both are, or where neither of them are. Pick now, and you save one for sure. Wait and you might save both. Or neither. Isn’t this game fun?”

Nobody spoke for a moment.

“Why do you even have Novak? We can’t stand each other.”

“I’ll just kill him now then,” Azazel said, raising a gun out and pointing it at Castiel’s head. Castiel tensed and waited for the kill shot but the next second he heard a yell from the other side of the phone.

“No! No, don’t,” Dean said quickly. Another voice joined his, and Cas smiled sadly as he heard Charlie begging for his life. They had grown so close in such a short time. He hoped she would be okay without him. She would probably find someone else to work with. He wanted to tell her it was okay. That she would be okay. He wanted to tell Dean that he forgave him for the decision he would have to make. But he couldn’t risk Jo, so he didn’t say a word.

“You have thirty seconds to make your decision.”

Cas listened as Charlie begged Dean to wait on the off chance that Azazel would let him save them both. As the time ran down, Cas almost thought he was going to do it. But in the last five seconds a defeated voice gave his answer.

“Sam. Tell me where Sam is.”

Azazel hung up and started texting. After he was done, he threw the phone he was using in the pool.

“Are you excited for the rescue mission?”

Castiel blinked.

“What?”

“You see, I was just nice enough to send both sets of coordinates. But in my hurry, I might have mislabeled which was which.”

Castiel closed his eyes and looked away. He was being used to cause Dean pain, and he found he couldn’t stomach the thought. The steady hatred that had been building for this man, this Azazel grew even more sharply. Castiel opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on Azazel. Heaven help this man if I get free, he thought.

*******************

“I hate you,” Charlie said, the words coming out softly. They hit Dean like a punch from a heavyweight champion, but he didn’t refute them. She had every right to say that to him.

But he couldn’t take a chance. Not when Sam’s life was on the line.

He remembered Zeke’s desperate ‘I had to’, and tried to ignore the nausea building up inside him.

“Bradbury,” Jody said firmly. “I’m sorry, but Dean made the right call. It’s our job to protect civilians-“

Dean’s phone rang with a notification. Dean opened it and felt a shock run through him.

“He sent both.”

Charlie froze before ripping the phone from his hands. As soon as she had memorized the coordinates, she was off, dragging a recently revived Alfie behind her. Chief Mills tried to call after her and tell her that Alfie wasn’t fit for work at the moment and that she needed to wait to be assigned, but Charlie didn’t seem to care. Dean also took off, racing his his motorcycle so he could get to his brother as fast as he could. There was no way that the chief was going to let anyone go anywhere until everything was organized, and he was already running out of time.

********************

Sam’s blindfold was removed after hours of having been kept in the dark. He saw Eileen sat in the chair across from him and mouthed to her, asking if she was alright. She gave an almost imperceptible nod.

“So, it appears you have a girlfriend,” said a feminine voice that Sam realized he knew. He struggled to remember it before placing it as belonging to the woman he had been talking to the night before. “Never would have figured.”

“Ruby?”

“Yeah. Surprise.”

Sam remembered the night before and with a growing horror realized how much he had gone on about his older brother. And Ruby had just been pumping him for information.

“You tricked me,” Sam realized.

“Pretty much. And it was easy too. It doesn’t even take that much prompting for you to talk about your psychic freak of a brother. It’s almost cute how much you look up to him.”

“You bitch,” Sam spat back, struggling with his bonds. Ruby tutted, tightening them mercilessly until Sam cried out in pain.

“It’s just too bad, you’re taken,” Ruby murmured close to his ear. “We could have had some fun before you die. You know, we still can.”

No. Sam struggled again, and heard the low laugh in his ear before Ruby turned to face him. The moment her back was turned Eileen launched from her own chair where she had been working away at the ropes and smacked Ruby over the head with the chair she had been tied to. Ruby fell the the ground, with a thud and Sam let out a shuddering breath.

“You okay?” Eileen asked. Sam nodded, and Eileen quickly undid the bonds on his wrists, and took hold of his hand. “There are bombs in the building. I saw them talking about it. We need to run.”

“What about her?” Sam asked. Much as he disliked the woman who had lied to him and threatened to… he didn’t even want to think about it- he still couldn’t just condemn someone to death.

“I know,” Eileen said, looking conflicted. “But we don’t have time. They’ll have seen us knock her out.”

Sam stared at the dark haired woman laid out on the floor, but nodded. He and Eileen began to run, and just when they saw the door leading outside to freedom at last, the explosions started.

***************

“Do you wonder why I picked this death for you?” Azazel asked.

“I assume you’ll tell me.”

“No wonder he likes you. You’ve got a mouth on you,” Azazel said with a smirk. “Yes, you’re right. True genius likes to be appreciated. See, I did a little digging, Castiel Novak. Looked into your past. Adopted at age eight by a mechanic who married a widow with a two year old. What a mixed little family, full of strays. But you kept your name. Never bothered changing it.”

“No.”

“Son of a Russian immigrant, homeless and pregnant at sixteen. No wonder she named you after the angel of tears and solitude.”

Castiel grit his teeth, waiting for the punchline he knew was coming.

“Like mother, like son. It’s only fitting that you die like she did. Drowned like a rat.”

The flood of memories of people walking by him and his mother rushed through Castiel. The way their eyes had slid past them, the true rarity of genuine kindness, and how much the simplest things had been appreciated. How sometimes, even the people who helped them looked at his mother and whispered words like ‘slut’ and ‘that’s just what happens I guess’, because they knew she couldn’t understand them. Remembers watching her drown in a river and nobody paying attention to his cries for help.

“She was not a rat,” Castiel said. And he had not been a burden. That much he had known. His mother had sang to him Russian when he got cold, and told him that he was what kept her going. She had called him her little angel, and he had never forgotten. That was why he had kept the name, despite the double takes and questions it got. It was a piece of her. He loved his mom and dad. Ellen and Bobby had taken good care of him. But he had wanted to keep a piece of his mother with him, even as the other memories of her faded. “And if I am any kind of angel, it is the kind that tore down cities because they were filled with criminals like you.”

“Save the flirting for lover boy.”

“You’re insane,” Castiel said. “What do you even want with Dean? Is he a threat to you?”

“Oh God no. No, I just wanted a new playmate. But Dean, he’s something special. Never had one quite so quick before. And men like him? It’s just beautiful the way they shatter. This game, it’s a masterpiece. It’s a love letter.”

“How romantic,” Castiel said sarcastically.

“In a way.”

A banging noise sounded somewhere inside the building.

“That’s my cue,” said Azazel. He struck a match and lit the rope that was keeping Castiel from falling into the water. “If I were you, I would hope that he would hurry.”

Then Azazel disappeared back into the shadows. Castiel debated for a moment whether or not to call for help, and if that would just be helping Azazel’s plans. The point was rendered moot when Dean ran through the pool door and his eyes widened when he saw Cas there.

“It was a trick,” Cas said, unnecessarily. He felt the rope begin to give. Shit, he was going to die.

“Hey Cas, stay with me,” Dean said, seeming to have recovered from the shock of seeing the wrong person in front of him. “I’ll get you out.”

Dean caught onto the rope right before it snapped. Castiel felt the lurch forward and the dangerous teeter of his chair. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding when Dean dragged him far enough back on the diving board that the chair could balance on all four legs. Dean made quick work of the ropes, and when Cas jumped out of the chair, the thing fell into the pool, slowly sinking until it stopped about midway down, attached to the weight. Castiel stared at it. Dean touched his arm, dragging his attention back to the situation at hand.

“If you’re gonna freak out, it’d be good if you have it wait until we get outside.”

“Right,” Cas said. “That makes sense. Maybe we get the bomb off my chest next. That makes sense, too.” Dean nodded and carefully lifted the vest over Cas’ head. “He’s still here, you know.”

“Let’s go then.”

“I’m sorry that Sam wasn’t-“

“Charlie will get him. Sam will be okay.”

Castiel didn’t say anything else, because it was clear to him that the belief that Sam would be okay was the only thing keeping Dean moving at the moment. So he just nodded and ran after Dean toward the pool room door. They made it into the hallway and down to the main room before they were surrounded by men with guns, no escape evident. Azazel walked out so he was front and center.

“Did you like?” he asked Dean. “I saved the best for last. You did say Batman was your favorite.”

“Dark Knight. Classic,” Dean answered, moving so he was standing between Azazel and Cas. Castiel found the motion odd, because it wasn’t like he could protect either of them from one of the three armed men with weapons trained on them. And in any case, Dean was the civilian here, not him.

“You want to know how I got these scars?” Azazel asked. “Well, eyes. See a while ago I was diagnosed with a disease that shut down my liver. No big deal for a guy like me to get a transplant, though right? Just kill someone that matches you. No big deal. Turns out I didn’t come out of the womb quite right. My whole system’s backwards. One in a million kind of deal. A death sentence. So I figured, why not go out with a bang? Now this, this has made me feel alive again. And it’s all thanks to you, you really have been the perfect partner. My other half.”

“He can’t be serious,” Dean said, glancing back at Novak. Castiel just raised an eyebrow. “God, what is this, you sick fuck? Some kind of show of- what?- affection?”

“No, a test. A game. Most people, they’re so slow, but you— it’s like you can read my mind. See just what I mean. My psychic. This has all been so much fun.”

“And now what?” Dean asked. “The game’s over. I won. So you’re going to let us go, and move on. I’d suggest a deserted island. Or the bottom of the ocean.”

“No. Now I think I leave you a broken man. And when you finally crack, I’ll return for you. You can help me run out the time until I expire. Like a pet.”

“Yeah, that is never going to happen,” Dean snorted.

“I’ve already killed your brother. He was dead before I even told you where he was,” said Azazel. Castiel could see Dean stiffen at the words. “And now I’ll have my men kill the man you love.”

“That’s not really-“ started Dean.

“We’re not-“ Castiel said at the same time. Both of their mouths snapped shut when they saw the three armed men behind them drop to the ground, darts sticking out from their necks.

Azazel ducked to the ground and narrowly avoided the same fate, but was in a perfect position for John Winchester to handcuff him as Mary made her way over to her son and Officer Novak.

“Mom,” Dean said, his eyes wide and confused. He accepted the hug from her without question and wiped away the tears that had started forming in her eyes. “Did you do this?”

She nodded.

“Dean, there are things we didn’t tell you. That I didn’t tell you. I’m so sorry, I just… I wanted you Sam to grow up without worrying.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ll explain everything later. Right now we need to arrest these men and get them out of here.”

Azazel let out a loud laugh, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.

“You think a jail cell can hold me? There’s nothing that will keep me locked up. Nowhere in the world. And since you’ve been so much trouble for me, I might just let my friend Alistair have you first. You remember those cases, don’t you Dean? He can make it go on for days, without even a risk of killing you. Then, I’ll take you, and we can be-“

Azazel was unfortunately cut off when Castiel stole one of Mary’s guns and shot a round through his head.

******************

When Charlie got to the coordinates that had been sent, the warehouse had already been blown to smithereens. Alfie placed a hand on her shoulder but she shook it off ignoring the tears streaming down her face and getting out of the squad car, starting to push at the smoking debris with he bare hands. It was desperate, and she knew it, but she wasn’t going to let Cas go just like that. Alfie watched her silently for a moment before joining in. The two sifted through the debris for about ten minutes before Alfie let out a yelp when a hand grabbed his. Charlie started clearing away the debris in the area, and then two bodies were uncovered, one of which she recognized was Sam Winchester. She realized what had happened about a second later.

“Son of a bitch, he played us,” she muttered. “Are they breathing?”

Alfie had been busy checking their vitals.

“She is,” he said. The woman’s eyes fluttered open a moment later and she blinked, reaching up to touch her forehead, where a cut was bleeding profusely. She frowned and sat up quickly despite Alfie’s warning for her to remain calm that she read from his lips. She doubted they realized she was deaf, but this realization hardly seemed to matter when she looked to her left. She saw Sam lying next to her and instantly checked his breath. When no soft puff of air met the palm of her hand she looked at the two cops that were standing over them and hoped that they were not traitors like one of the three cops in Sam’s apartment had been.

“Call an ambulance,” she said quickly, turning around the next second and starting CPR. She hoped they would do as she said, and took a second to check after the first fifteen chest compressions. She tilted Sam’s head back and breathed in two long breaths before continuing check compressions. It seemed like forever before she finally heard a hacking cough, and Sam leaning over to puke. Eileen rubbed his back gently before he fell back to the ground. He was breathing. It was alright because he was breathing. He smiled up at her and weakly signed a thank you, and Eileen felt as though something in her chest had broken off and fallen into her stomach. She took Sam’s hand and refused to let it go, even as the ambulance arrived. Perhaps it was most telling that in that moment she didn’t even care how Mildred would tease her for this lapse in appropriate behavior. She just had to make sure Sam Winchester kept breathing, at least for the moment. Tomorrow, she may be shipped off to England to exchange vital intelligence with an Egyptian operative or to China to assassinate a Russian crime lord, but right now, she just had to hold on tight to the life she had saved and the incredible man she had known for so short a time and had almost lost before she even realized what she had found.

*****************

Cas dropped the gun wordlessly. He seemed beyond any kind of speech, and it was Mary that sent everybody into action.

“Dean, get him outside,” she said. His mother rarely gave him any kind of orders, and despite having conditioned himself thoroughly not to listen when other people told him he should do things, Dean found himself obeying instantly, dragging Cas behind him. He vaguely understood that Mary planned to take the henchmen out and give them to the police, and then set off the explosives that had been set up inside the building so that evidence of Cas’ indiscretion would be blown away, like ash in the wind.

It seemed a cold kind of comfort to a man who was led by rules and had willfully broken them to take another man’s life.

Neither of the two men spoke a word, both lost in their own personal tragedies. Dean was mourning his brother, wishing more than anything he had kept Sam by his side. And Castiel was staring at his hands, wondering if he was a different man, now that he had taken a life in cold blood. Because it had been cold blood. He had known that Azazel was caught, and should be brought in and tried. But he had gone against everything he had believed in, and all because Azazel had threatened…

He wasn’t going to think about it. Azazel would have killed more people. It wasn’t a decision he regretted. But it wasn’t a decision he was sure he could go on with either.

John and Mary joined them outside the pool and the four of them watched as the building exploded, the flash of heat and puff of air hitting them even from the safe distance they’d dragged themselves and the three men who had been in the pool with Azazel.

When Dean got the call that Sam was okay, he finally broke down. It had been a long time coming, the entire fucking ordeal finally hitting him all at once. He could count on one hand, the amount of times he had ever really cried in his life, but right then he just couldn’t help it. His mother sat down beside him and wrapped an arm around his shoulder while his dad cleared his throat and walked a short distance away, uncomfortable by strong displays of emotion as always. Castiel stood statue still, waiting for the police to get there so he could escape, go back to his apartment with Jo and find his own catharsis. He couldn’t let go here. He was still a cop, still on duty really. If the going was tough, he just needed to suck it up. Dean was a civilian, he hadn’t been trained for this kind of pressure like Cas had. It wasn’t acceptable for Cas to shout like he wanted to, to break something because he wasn’t the same person he’d been the day before. So he stayed quiet, and when the SBPD finally arrived in full force, he caught a ride back to his apartment, dealt with Jo’s fussing for about ten minutes before he locked himself in the bathroom, turned on the shower and sat inside, focusing on keeping his breath from picking up. He realized soon the water had been a bad idea, since as it started to collect at the bottom, it reminded him of the pool he could have drowned in. He jumped out of the shower and leaned over the sink, staring at his reflection.

“Get it together Novak,” he told himself. After about half an hour had passed, a soft knock sounded on the door.

“Go away, Jo,” Cas said.

“It’s Charlie.”

Cas sighed and pulled on some clothes so he could open the door. The moment he did, Charlie threw herself into his arms. He gently returned the hug, patting her back and then smoothing his palms over her shoulder blades when it became apparent she wasn’t letting go any time soon.

“I thought you were going to die,” she whispered into his side.

“You have so little faith in me,” Castiel said, his dead pan tone and lack of expression making Charlie take a deep breath in an aborted laugh. “I’m alright. Really.”

“No you’re not,” Charlie said, hugging him tighter. Somehow that loosened all the tension inside him. No he wasn’t. But that was okay.

“Do you think the police department will pay for the therapy?” he asked her, only half joking. Charlie finally let go and looked up at him, a slight bit of mischief in her eyes.

“If they don’t, I’ll just wire the money over for you.”

Cas let Jo and Charlie take care of him that night, though he did not do it without complaining. In all honesty, they would probably be more concerned if he didn’t object to them constantly making him tea and trying to get him to watch a movie or sleep or whatever they thought would help him. Sleep did come eventually, and Castiel was glad that he was too tired to remember his dreams the next morning, because he was fairly certain if he could, he would have dreamed of staring up at the world he knew, his lungs slowly filling with water.

****************

Jody Mills was not happy.

It had been a few days since Azazel had died and before Jody were two letters, one of which was a very professional letter of resignation and the other of which was a handwritten note that simply said ‘I quit’. She looked back and forth between the two and decided it just wouldn’t do. She wasn’t going to lose the two most efficient members of her department. She was all for sensitivity and all that, but Winchester and Novak were the best she had, and she wasn’t going to let them go quietly.

The two men filed into her office. She looked at them.

“So I have a question. What the fuck are these?”

She threw the two sheets of paper down on the table. Neither Dean or Castiel answered.

“Look, I don’t know everything that happened that day. And I doubt I ever will. But whatever is bothering you two, I promise you I don’t care. Talk it out. Or don’t. Just don’t make a rash decision here. We need you both here, but if you have to leave I get it. Or if you need time off. Just don’t leave because you think we want you out.”

And with that, Jody left the room and shut the door after promising them both she’d be back in fifteen minutes and expected them gone by then, since the evening shift would start soon. Dean spoke first.

“Why are you quitting?”

“You know why.”

“Charlie’s going to flip.”

“She’ll get over it.”

Dean didn’t say anything for a moment. He collected his thoughts and figured out just what to say.

“You know you did the right thing, right?”

“I didn't do the right thing. I did the necessary thing.”

“Same difference.”

“It’s not, actually. The right thing would have been to bring him. Have him tried by a jury of his peers. The right thing to do would be to trust the system I swore to uphold and protect. I took justice into my own hands. I shot an unarmed man. Under no circumstances will I call that the right thing to do.”

“You saved a lot of lives, shooting him, though.”

Yes, but he had only been thinking of one.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“So you’re just going to quit?”

“Why are you leaving then, if the idea is so abhorrent to you?”

“Why do you think?”

Neither of them said the reason out loud, but Castiel could read it on his face. He was a fake, a fraud. Always performing, always pretending. But for once Castiel didn’t say the words out loud. Because loathe as he was to admit it, Dean had done a lot of good. Hell, he’d even been jealous of the man across from him, for his skill in solving cases. What did it matter if he was a liar if he was saving lives?

“So I guess that’s it then.”

“I guess,” Dean answered. Castiel got up to leave, and Dean hesitated before asking him. “Can I have a ride home? I thought this would take longer, and my parents are both with Sam right now. I’m kind of banned from the hospital until I manage to get eight hours of sleep. Also, I can’t really ride my motorcycle because some dick keeps ticketing me.”

Castiel tried to hide his smirk at the last part, glad for the change in subject even thought the request made him nervous for reasons he couldn’t quite explain to himself.

“I think I can manage that at least.”

Only, somehow Castiel didn’t end up leaving when they got to Dean’s apartment. Nor did it seem as strange as it should when they were suddenly tangled up in each other, as though somehow the tension of the twenty four hours of terror Azazel had inflicted on them had still managed to simmer under the surface, even days after it was all over, and only now did some kind of desperate bid for connection free itself. The last thought that ran through Castiel’s head before sleep clawed him under was that Dean Winchester was only the third person he had ever slept with in his life. The thought and the significance of it terrified him.

*********************

Sam had just been released from the hospital and decided the best way to celebrate would be to visit his brother. He knocked loudly on the door, and when he got no answer, called his brother on the phone.

Castiel was the first to wake when he heard the phone ringing, and the realization of where he was and who he was with was enough to jerk him wide awake. Dean’s arm was restricted his movement, and a kind of claustrophobia overcame him enough to push Dean off of him. The fall to floor had Dean up pretty quickly too.

“What the fuck, man?” he said, sleepily angry. Castiel tried not to feel self conscious about the fact he wasn’t wearing anything. He’d give anything to be in uniform just then.

“Your phone was ringing,” he muttered, doing his best to search for his clothes. Dean only seemed to realize this fact after Cas had pointed it out.

“Hey Sammy,” he said into the phone. “Why are you calling so early?”

“It’s not early. Anyways I got released this morning. I’m outside.”

Dean nearly fell out of his bed again at that news, because a very naked Castiel Novak was wandering around his room and that was not something that Sam ever, ever needed to know.

“Uh huh.”

“So can you let me in?”

“Now’s not really a good time.”

“What do you mean, now’s not a good time?”

“I was sleeping.”

“Get over yourself. Answer the door or I’m picking the lock.”

Sam hung up after that. Dean sprung into action.

“Sam’s here,” he told Cas. The officer had managed to locate most of his clothes and was dressed except for his shirt, which he seemed to be unable to find.

“You distract him, I’ll sneak out,” Cas answered, seeming to have given up on his shirt. Dean was glad they were on the same page so far as things that other people should never know about. He also thanked God that Sam wouldn’t have seen Cas’ car because he’d parked around the other side of the apartment complex. There were just some things he really didn’t want to explain to his little brother.

Sam barged in the moment Dean opened the door and it was surprisingly easy for Castiel to sneak past and wait for an important part of the conversation to open the door. It was slightly after that that Sam started asking Dean questions.

“So what are we going to do? About your psychic thing?”

Dean could see Castiel pause, and knew the officer was listening.

“I think we keep going. You know, saving people. Catching bad guys. It’s like our thing now.”

“So what everything just goes back to normal?”

Could it? Dean saw Castiel watching him for a moment but he disappeared out the front door before Dean could answer.

“I don’t know. I guess,” Dean figured it was time to change the subject. “How’s Eileen?”

“She’s in India. I’ll probably get to talk to her next week. Said she’d probably be back in two.”

“Dating a CIA agent sounds like it kind of sucks,” Dean pointed out. “Sure you’re ready for that?”

“Yeah. But I know what you mean. I guess now we know what dad went through.”

“I guess.”

“You know mom’s not a saint, right? I love her to bits, but she made her choices too. You can’t blame dad for everything that goes wrong the rest of your life.

“Who says I am?”

“I do. Cut the old man some slack.”

“Yeah, okay Sammy, did you come here to lecture me, or did you come here because we both know you like mom’s blueberry pancakes after you’ve been sick and you can’t make them as well as I can?”

Sam considered.

“The second.”

“Well then shut up and sit down.”

Sam did and picked up a shirt that didn’t belong to Dean and put it down on the kitchen table, smiling a little at the chance to embarrass his brother.

“Sleeping, huh?” he asked. Dean turned around and his face went bright red when he saw Novak’s shirt. Sam didn’t seem to realize who it belonged to though and was just teasing him in general. Thank God.

“I thought I told you to shut up,” he muttered, as he started making up the pancake batter.

*********************

Jody was very pleased to see her tactic had worked and that both Novak and Winchester had rescinded their offer of resignation. Of course, she wasn’t entirely sure why neither man looked entirely comfortable next the other. Nor would she have particularly cared to know if either of them had been willing to share.

“Novak,” Dean had said in greeting that morning. He honestly hadn’t expected him to be there. And now he had no fucking clue what to do about it. Sleeping with someone you used to work with is a whole different beast then having to share work space and likely a huge part of your caseload with them. Especially with a spectacular amount of fucked up shit they went through in a very short period of time. This spelled out a recipe for all kinds of awkwardness.

“Winchester,” Castiel had said back. Then the two studiously avoided eye contact

Charlie sidled up to Sam and pointed toward their respective partners.

“Things not quite back to the usual yet,” she pointed out. She figured it made sense. Dean had saved Cas’ life, that wasn’t something either person was just instantly comfortable with. “Not that I blame them.”

“Yeah, but at least they’re not yelling at each other yet. I say we enjoy it while we can.”

“Speak for yourself. I happen to think its funny when they argue.”

“What’s funny?” asked Cas who had just walked over while Sam and Charlie had been talking. Charlie shrugged and Cas seemed to take that to mean whatever it was was unimportant. “The Chief wants us to start on a series of disappearances in or around motel chains. The cars go missing too, but we think we might have found some of them through satellite imaging.”

“You sure you want to start back up full speed?” Charlie asked, concern flooding her face. Novak nodded brusquely and continued to explain the case. Because he wasn’t some broken thing to be used and discarded. He was damn good at his job and maybe he’d made a mistake, but he would fix it. If he had to pay for the one life he had taken when he shouldn’t have with a thousand lives saved, he would work himself down to the bone to do so. And he wouldn’t let Dean keep him away either. He had worked too hard to get where he was to let any kind of ridiculous hurt feelings get in the way of doing his job.

Sam walked over to Dean and saw him looking over a similar file.

“What are you thinking?”

“What?” he asked, seeming distracted. “Oh, the new case. Um… cannibals I think.”

“Dude are you alright?” Sam asked, confused by Dean’s distracted behavior. He had been better recently since everything had happened, but maybe deciding to work again had triggered something. Dean shook his head once and then looked at his brother.

“Yeah. Well I mean, I could use some coffee if you wanted to do something useful instead of just standing there like a stripper pole.”

Well, that sounded more like Dean.

“You disgust me.”

“I’m hilarious,” Dean said, some of his usual cheer back in his voice. “C’mon Sammy. We have to catch these bastards before they try to eat you. Literally. Eileen would be so disappointed.”

“I’m ignoring you now.”

It almost felt normal, but a split second before he looked away, Sam saw Dean’s face fall back into a kind of thoughtful rest, as though he had other things on his mind.

Dean snuck a glance at Novak and tried not to remember the night before. Fuck, he had no idea how any of this was supposed to work now. Still, if he’d learned anything in his rather colorful life, it was the only way past problems was to barrel right through them, so that’s what he would do. They would get through this case, lock up a couple of Hannibal Lecters, and then he would deal with whatever came next the same as he always did. With a smile and a can do attitude. It’d gotten him this far, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it for now. I'd love to hear whether or not anyone wants me to start a series and possibly right one shots or maybe even come up with another two to four parter set in the same place. Also, any and all feedback is appreciated. Thanks for reading, and have a nice day (or night, since I can't be the only one up at four a.m. reading).


End file.
